early a. m. thoughts

God is not anything you imagine, including your imagining that God does not exist. You cannot imagine God out of existence. Even your imagination that God is all in your imagination is your imagination. Your imagination, pro or con, has nothing to do with God.

Nor is God truth, beauty, and love. Once again, vain imaginings. We erect images of God or No-God and fall prey (fall down and pray?) to these images. In this way atheists and theists are much alike. Each grouping congratulates themselves on having the correct imaginings.

* * *
Do you know the difference between a mage and a sage?
I'll bite. What?
A mage knows nothing and doesn't like it.
A sage knows nothing and it's mighty fine.

* * *
Jesus said, A man made a big dinner and sent his servant buddy out to tell the invited guests that it was ready. The first one said, "I've got stuff to do." The second one said, "I've got stuff to do." Each of the rest on the invited guest list said, "I've got stuff to do."The servant came back and said "They aren't coming. They say they have stuff to do." The man said, okay, go out to the road and invite everyone you see. (From the Gospel of Thomas)

Here's that "stuff to do" thing again. The easy understanding of the story is that we don't stop to smell the roses. So we schedule "Rose-Smelling Time" in our planner. A perhaps more difficult understanding (because we don't want to hear it) of the story is that we allow no space because of the fear of facing ourselves, of being alone with ourselves. We must stay occupied at all times by invading troops.

We distract ourselves from all the shit we've piled up inside over the years. Or from the vast aching hole at our core that we know we can never fill. We really don't like ourselves but it's alright because we have "stuff to do." We live, what, 70 - 80 - 90 years? in a state of total distraction.

The story doesn't say that anyone ever came to the dinner. But I bet the people on the road did. No one on the road has any "stuff to do." When on the road, every moment is free and open. That dinner party is still going on.