Brian’s Reflection: Wednesday, May 2, 2007


A great wind is blowing, and that gives you
either imagination or a headache.

- Catherine the Great of Russia, born
on this day, 1729


Catherine was a woman of her times and station. She was also a woman who, like so many people in their relationship with “God”, were delusional. I can’t tell you the number of people I have met personally in my life who actually believe that God is their lapdog, who will meekly do their will, countenance their sub-humanity. Catherine is one of them. She said, “I shall be an autocrat, that's my trade; and the good Lord will forgive me, that's his.”

Wrong, lady. God is just – not a patsy.

However, people say interesting things. Great winds are always blowing. That is Life. Change is the only constant. Catherine is correct: one can either meet the Great Winds with imagination, or get a headache - and usually become an obstructionist and a crank. I vote for the Imagination. Global warming. Immigration. Global shifting of populations. Religious syncretism or religious war. Meeting of cultures and religions. Poverty. Classism. Fear of the “different”. We can see the possibilities of Imagination – see the possibilities for human evolvement. Or we can shrivel in fear and build our little enclaves and soon we will be holed up in our foxholes in animal skins and ignorance. Which future sounds good to you??

Catherine never did a thing for the poor, for the starving, for the enslaved, for the suffering.

Jesus died for them.

I know which path I choose.

Brian+