Ten thoughts about the nature of deity...in no particular order.
1. We all understand that the gods/esses have had a yen for sacrifice over the millenia. Did you know the root of the word sacrifice is "sacre facere", Latin for "to make holy". Nothing about killing or bloodshed. So...go ahead and sacrifice yourself (with apologies to William G Gray).
2. If traditional prayer is outwardly-directed and pagan ritual works through the Divine within...which has a better chance of being heard?...all the time?
3. You've heard the notion that each of us contain atoms from Napoleon (or Alexander or pick your favorite historical figure). How about some of their genes? Their memories? Their experience of the Divine?
4. I don't know about you, but I don't think there's an old guy with a beard watching over me and every other soul in the Universe all the time. And I'm really sure there's no old woman with a beard...
5. The cool thing about being polytheistic is your gods/esses can beat the crap out of their guy.
6. To put #4 in a bit less jocular light...the idea of a singular consciousness that is omniscient and omnipresent seems a bit much. Better for me the incalculable accumulation of wisdom, love, curiosity, creativity, and, yes, destruction, in the wellspring of the collective soul, the realm of myth and archetype and, yeah, deity.
7. Ultimately, it seems to me it's not how many gods/esses you have, it's how they shape your life. If they challenge you to affect positive change in the universe, then one's as good as 5000.
8. Ya know, I thought this would be a short essay for once. Silly me...consider the subject.
9. In spite of everything I've written here, it's still important to me to call myself an agnostic. See #4 above, I guess. Whether the gods/esses tangibly exist on any plane is less important to me than simply trusting the inspiration I receive and not analyzing its source.
10. Being a god means never having to say you're sorry. People can avoid having to if they pay attention to what they learn.
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