Thomas Merton wrote that most people seeking faith – whatever their religious beliefs – end up having to choose between two kinds of God.

Those who abandon other beliefs to seek their idea of God believe that the God they chose is the God of the poor, the God of Hope, the God of Empathy.

There is the other God, the one we fear, the God of anger,  money, domination, and power. That is the other choice.

A young Evangelical writer I admired went back to the Church of his youth on Texas last month and found a faith – his faith – that has become a political, not a religious entity, obsessed with money, victory,  grievance, and selfishness.

He was shocked to read a poll saying that more than 80 percent of people who call themselves Evangelicals do not believe poor immigrants or refugees are owed any kind of mercy or support. He is reconsidering his faith, which he says, has abandoned the most elemental tenets of his Christianity.

When I look at the news, I see Merton’s prophecy come alive. There are two kinds of choices for most people seeking God, two kinds of God, you can see them on the news every day:  the God of Infinite Mercy, or the God of little or none. The God of forgiveness, the God of anger.

The God who calls for caring for the needy and the vulnerable, and the God who hates the poor and the weak, and who demands the political, not spiritual,  right to tell other people who to love and how to live, and who seeks to shut closed the doors from which most of us and our ancestors came seeking their freedom.

In the past few years, the world has called upon me to choose my God, and I have, although I was slow to see it.

I am not conventionally religious, I do not belong to any church or denomination. I still belong to my Quaker Meeting in New Jersey,  I haven’t been to Meeting in some years. I am somewhat allergic to any kind of institution, which is why I live in a small rural town.

My idea of God is ethereal, I see God in my own way as the spirit of hope and creativity in the color and light of my pictures, in call of the heart and the impulse to do some good. I have no wish to be perfect or saintly or without flaws, I am often criticized for being less than perfect, but I am nothing but human.

I see my many flaws and accept who I am.

My God is the God of the poor and the vulnerable, there is a new kind of congregation all around me. I am not its leader, just its voice. Only the man who has had to face despair is truly convinced that he needs mercy and can give mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it or offer it.

I need mercy.

The times we are in challenge me choose my God, whatever I call him, whatever or whoever he or she is. Time to show up and understand who I am and what it is I believe, and to own it.

My congregation is personal and private, it is based on compassion and kindness,  not dogma or robes or rituals. Our hearts are our faith. Our justice is to forgive those whom no one else will forgive, and comfort those who no one else will comfort.

My idea of God is a God of Infinite Mercy who can hope where there is no hope, can love where there is no love, who reaches out to the vulnerable and touches them gently on the shoulder, and whispers in their ear, you are not alone.

That’s my God. He lives in me.