So today I’m supposed to write about some sort of ‘thinking outside the box’.

At first I thought Deke was just getting silly or running out of ideas but it does go along nicely with something I’ve been playing around with in my head lately.

I wanna talk about the possibility that the idea of many paths leading to God might not be so crazy. I’m not saying that all faiths are correct and Im not saying all paths are good or valid ones to take on the spiritual walk. I still tend to believe for alot of reasons that Jesus Christ is THE path.

Deke and me have talked about this some…the idea of all religions being equally valid (for folks who believe in a higher power but don’t have much faith in religious institutions themselves). And our talks have often come to the idea that SOMEONE has to be right and most everyone else has to be wrong because there are too many irreconcilable differences between alot of them.

But I’ve been trying to think more creatively and broadly about things and to think outside of my own faith beliefs. What I’m about to say ISN’T me stepping away from Christianity or trying to get people of other religions off the hook. Like I said I still believe in Jesus as the guy who we need to go through to get to God. But in the spirit of thiking outside the box, here is an interesting little theory I have that would allow for all faiths (or most of’em anyway) to coexist and be valid paths to heaven.

Here goes…

What if the defining godly attribute isn’t just faith but also imagination? What is the creative mind is what the creator is looking for in heaven? If anyone has seen the flick “Defending Your Life” the idea was that you keep being reincarnated and going back to Judgement City and basically having your life put on trial until the heavenly courts decide that you have conquered your fear. Fear in that movie is what keeps humans on Earth from advancing to whatever the next level is in the afterlife. I don’t know what emotion or whatever they have to overcome thereafter, if any.

What if imagination is what God is really looking for? He creates. He manages a whole universe and maybe even more than just the universe. He supposedly created us in his image. So what if what he wants is for us to expand our minds to a point where when we die we are beings that have enough creativity and imagination to be enough like him to move on to the next level. Maybe like in the movie we get recycled until we get it right.

I’m just saying. It’s an interesting idea. Because if it were true, and it probably isn’t…but if it were, it would mean that religion isn’t so much about getting it right but being able to conceive how God and spiritual things fit into our earthly lives. The act of being able to imagine a God and how we would fit into his/her/its design on a complex and deep level is what the goal really is.

Just a thought.