“There are many gods.”

January 7, 2026

Ask me a theological question.

I now knew that there was a God, and I knew a bit about Him (or Her).  But, for all I knew, there might be other gods as well.  It might seem surprising that I would entertain such an idea.  It’s usually assumed that, if there is a God, then it is a monotheistic God and it has the traditional set of characteristics.

But I had not believed in God, and I did not have a worldview that had room for a God, either traditional or otherwise.  My agnostic worldview had no room for any kind of “supernatural” beings.  So, if there was a God after all, as I now believed, it was a wide open question what God was like.  One God, many, gods, an infinite god, a finite god, and on down the list—all were equally improbable and therefore equally possible.  I had become radically open-minded.

So I asked, “Lord, are there many gods?”

Yes.

Okay, I had asked but, in spite of my vaunted open-mindedness, I did not like the answer at all.  It was hard enough to believe in God.  Was I now supposed to believe in Zeus and Odin?

“Lord, please explain that answer.”  I hoped He would explain it away.

Remember that your concept of identity is not very helpful in these things.  But there are many gods.

I had heard various theories of multiple gods, so questions tumbled out.  “How do they relate?  Is there a hierarchy of gods?  Is there one highest or encompassing divinity?  That would be at least quasi-monotheistic.”

Your questions involve so many false (crude) assumptions that it is difficult to answer.

I found that irritating.  They seemed like good questions to me.  I put the issue aside for the moment but, a few days later, I asked again.  “Lord, is there only one God?”  I was hoping for a different answer.

No, there are many gods.

Maybe “god” was being used in an unusual way.  “Lord, what do You mean by ‘god’?”

Divine beings, holy beings.

“But You said You were the God of All.”

I am also the God of Many.

 

lion lying down with the lamb

“No, animals are not cruel …”

January 1, 2026

I had been asking God about the early stages of life.

Personality develops (think of your own pets) and intelligence, problem-solving, lives with continuous purpose and plans, individual recognition of one animal by another, life-long mates. Now I have not just a playpen, but a menagerie, a zoo, of my own, a private jungle where I can be Tarzan.

There is nothing wrong in this world.

“Aren’t animals sometimes vicious, sometimes cruel?”

No, animals are not cruel—their personalities have not developed to that point.  Nothing (is) wrong.  It is delightful, a joy.  I love all the animals, and bear their suffering.

Gate 43 and the Meaning of Greatness

Gate 43 and the Meaning of Greatness

December 31, 2025

Some of the long flights to California go swimmingly, and some are more like Noah’s flood. Timing is crucial because Abigail has a week of medical appointments starting the next morning. We knew we were in trouble before the flight ever left Philadelphia. Our plane would be leaving late. All they could do was to put us at the top of the standby list for a connection in Dallas. Landing, we raced to the gate of the next flight our way. Not yet taken off, but doors closed. Raced to the next, and then the next, each time trying to win the sympathy of the officials at the desk. Then found a flight with hope and verified that we were still at the top of the standby list. After waiting a bit, the clouds parted and cherished boarding passes were placed in our hands. Oh, the joy of holding those little stiff paper passes! Then we waited and – hmmm – then waited some more. Ut-oh – the pilot and crew had not arrived. (Why had they not known about this sooner?) Once again, wait and hope, wait and hope. Then the news – this flight has been cancelled – and the boarding passes held tight in our hands became pitiless reminders of failed efforts. Would there be any way to get to tomorrow’s medical appointment? Go to the airline office, opposite Gate 43. Raced there. Passed along the way the most interminable line in the history of air transport. One could not actually see where it began or where it ended. It did not seem realistic for us to stand in that never-ending line. There was one more possibility. Find a tender heart who can help. I pushed Abigail in her wheel-chair to Gate 43 and explained our situation. “I have the impression that you have the means to help us,” I said. “Yes, I do,” she said with an impersonal smile. “But that is not my job.” A second earnest plea to her humanity crashed against the same smile. What is that young woman’s goal in life? I wondered. Then the irony struck me. How had the video showed onboard ended? “We hope you have a great flight – because greatness is what we’re going for!” Really?

An Odd Dream About Criticism and Self-Restraint

An Odd Dream About Criticism and Self-Restraint

December 22, 2025

I had an odd dream. Some guy called me, saying that I was a terrible person in this way and that way and another way. I didn’t think I was that bad but, in the dream, I didn’t defend myself “because I didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm.” Well, go figure!

Things that Seem Reckless to You Are Not Reckless

Things that Seem Reckless to You Are Not Reckless

December 4, 2025

I do not want to rush you or make you do something that feels reckless, but I have to push you.  Things that seem reckless to you are not reckless.  They are safe.  What is reckless is wasting your time, wasting your life away.  Life is short.  You must make the most of it now.  It is now time to move on.

Start reading and studying.  Start doing some writing.  Start talking to people on a careful, gentle basis.  Find out who your friends and allies are.  Do not hold back.  Seek support.  Not everyone walks so closely with God.  Can’t you tell that I am already blessing you, already keeping My covenant with you?

I have prepared you to be a risk-taker.  I have always rewarded you for it.  Now I am asking you to take another risk.

 

 

 

 

“You need both.”

November 27, 2025

Most of my prayers were about the ups and downs of daily life and often about my still new relationship.  I often began the day by praying while still in bed.  One morning, I was asking something about Abigail.  For a second time, the answer came in a woman’s voice.  “Is that a female voice?”

Yes.

“Are You a woman?”

When I want to be.

“Why do You usually appear as a man?”

It goes over better.

“With most folks?”

Yes.

Many days later, I had an experience that felt like the feminine presence of God—like a powdery shower, like perfumed talc being sprinkled over my whole being.  When I had unusual experiences like this, I found them both heady and troubling.  “Lord, I could get lost in experiences like this.”

This is a phase because it is new.  Don’t worry, you’ll get over it.

“Lord, is there special meaning to the feminine presence?”

You need both (masculine and feminine).  What you call the masculine presence gives you strength and energy.  It is a bonding in My service.  The so-called feminine gives you grace and peace.  It is a healing between you and Me.

What We Leave Behind

November 17, 2025

What to save when an older relative passes away? And what do the items left behind tell about that person? These were questions put to me by a friend packing the memorabilia of a rather enigmatic departed one.

When my father died in Riverside, California, where I grew up, I asked my daughter, who lives in San Diego, if she would pack up his things, selectively. She generously consented to do so, and thereby saved me emotionally wrenching decisions in the immediate wake of his passing. I have many thoughts and memories of my father, who was the kind of guy you could always count on. But I doubt if I could have inferred that, or much of anything, from his artifacts alone. (Well, I could have inferred one thing: he had an eye for beautiful women. He had photos of the best looking women at the retirement home — staff, not other oldsters.)

A person I knew in DC was successful in business and in politics, and kept a careful record of all his accomplishments. He commented one day about the death of his grandfather, a prominent civic leader. All the awards and trophies, all the photos with notables, ended up in boxes on the sidewalk, waiting to be carted away.

I got interested in antiques several years ago, including small items to fill empty spots in large apartment I had just moved into. So I started going to estate sales. I found it strange, and questionable, to pilfer, as it were, the embodied memories of someone who has left them behind. One was a retired school teacher who had traveled widely in her later years. I picked up several things, including a little figure acquired in Turkey, of a famous sage who sits on a donkey, facing backwards, teaching his pupils who follow behind. Reflecting on it, I decided, no this is not ghoulish. She would be happy that things that meant something to her had found an appreciative home.

These random thoughts may not come to much. But there is something you might call “life-wisdom,” and it is acquired, in part, through ruminations wandering aimlessly.

“There is a purpose but not an end point.”

November 13, 2025

“Lord, is there an aim, like perfecting the world or uniting us all into the Godhead?”

No, not exactly.  There is a purpose but not an end-point.  The notion of an end-point derives from the model of the human will and its desires, getting what it wants.  The purpose of singing a song is not to get to the end.

There is no end-time.  The purpose of eschatology is to portray something about the meaning of the world.

Eschatology denotes religious ideas about the final purpose or culmination of history.

There are endings to particular worlds, but they are not apocalyptic, any more than an individual death is.

Well, just when a meaningful pattern was emerging, a sense of direction to life and history, it ends, as T. S. Eliot says, “not with a bang but with a whimper.”  History comes to nothing.  I found this answer distressing, and Abigail was more upset than I was.  One of the Jews’ gifts to the world is the very idea of history, not as a series of endless episodes or cycles, but as a progress, with a Beginning (the Creation) and a Grand Finale (the Coming of the Messiah).  Abigail doesn’t even like movies without happy endings.  And we weren’t talking about movies.  As we saw it, we were talking about whether life had any meaning or purpose at all.  This is a concern neither of us would let go.

“Outside of the Bible, Who Talks to God?”

November 6, 2025

Another notable book by William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, helped answer this question. The founder of pragmatism, the only distinctively American school of philosophy, James taught not only philosophy but, as Harvard professors did in those days, psychology and physiology as well.  He was a man of science but, for him, empiricism did not mean restricting our understanding to what science registers; he looked without prejudice at all kinds of human experience, of which religious experiences are among the most interesting. He talks about famous people such as George Fox as well as ordinary people who have received answers to prayer or psychic intuitions or visitations from recently-departed family members.

Many human beings have had moments of divine or non-natural awareness, probably more than feel comfortable talking about them publicly. Duke English professor Reynolds Price writes about his own battle with cancer.  During the course of his treatment, he had an encounter with Jesus in a vision or, as it seemed to him, in another dimension. After he published his story, he received letters from many people with similar experiences—experiences that they had never told anyone. My experience was not as out-of-line as I had thought.  

I decided to follow the voice and see where it would lead me.