(r)evolution: June 2007

Isaiah 46:5 in the Message translation...

So to whom will you compare me, the Incomparable?
Can you picture me without reducing me?

i think it's an interesting way of looking at it, and one which we tend to forget. we cannot picture God. it's not possible. while i disagree on many levels with the gnostics of old, they were right in some regards... we can't know God. (hold on, don't get your drawers in a wad) do i believe it's possible to have an intimate relationship with your Creator? YES! do i believe we can know/understand some limited concepts about God? yes. do i believe we can even begin to comprehend who/what/where/why/how God is? no. it's beyond our ability to comprehend.

most if not all people have difficulty (really it's next to impossible) to comprehend $1-trillion. bill gates might be close to it, but you and i can't comprehend it. it's too large for those of us who aren't millionaires, and even for millionaires it's inconceivable! (you keep using that word, i dona think it means wha you think it means) we have no way of comparing it to anything we know. when have you ever seen 1-trillion anything? (scientists and philosophers would say every day, but you get my point) as children we start small, 1 pencil + 1 more pencil = 2 pencils. as we age we are capable of far larger and more complex concepts/numbers. but sooner or later our training/learning trails off. most of us rarely get to deal with the concept of 1-million, much less 1-billion, and only scientists/congressmen/women and extremely large corps. usually ever even have to think about 1-trillion, and i'm not convinced that many of them really grasp the enormity.

1
10
100
1,000
10,000
100,000
1,000,000
10,000,000
100,000,000
1,000,000,000
10,000,000,000
100,000,000,000
1,000,000,000,000...

if someone with $1,000 spends $1 they have $999
if someone with $1,000,000,000,000 spends $1 they still have $999,999,999,999
it's basically like nothing happened at all, you'd never even realize it was gone. another reason we can't comprehend such #s is our calculators which we have come to rely on so heavily only go to 10,000,000.

this has taken a while i realize, but think about this, their are so many stars in the universe that i'm not even sure we have a word for it. trying to explain it would sound like a young child in a make-believe contest, "--whatever-- times 1-million" 'oh yeah? --whatever--times an enorma-mega-giganti-bigillion!'
now, if you believe as i do that some force (God) called those stars into existence... how big is God? how unfathomable is God? beyond comprehension. there are not words, and even if there were there are not minds great enough to understand them.

any way we look at God, try to understand Him or how He works is pathetic! all such attempts reduce God. to understand we must reduce and so we can never truly understand. ***EDIT: even the use of words like he/him limit God***

how does anyone believe that they have 'THE TRUTH' how arrogant is that?!?! "i have come to 'the truth' i know everything about God!" yeah right. no one has a corner on God. NO ONE!

paul admits that our attempts to understand are like "looking through a glass darkly" most people consider this to be a poor mirror. i'm not sure. (i'm completely speculating here) it's entirely possible given the people he was speaking to and their past religious concepts that he was referring to something like a 'crystal ball'. when a seer couldn't see anything he/she would say something like the glass is dark or the glass is cloudy. these people would have understood that concept. he's saying, God/heaven/etc is something we can sort of understand, but really our ability is equal to someone looking for answers in a crystal ball (in itself futile) that's gone dark. maybe a glimpse here or there, but nothing substantial, nothing concrete.

i think it's time we had a deeper, more open conversation.

(r)evolution

08 June 2007

the incomprable

03 June 2007

The Conversation

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