Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, January 01, 2008


The conception of gods as superhuman beings endowed with powers to which
man possesses nothing comparable in degree and hardly even in kind, has been
slowly evolved in the course of history. By primitive peoples the supernatural
agents are not regarded as greatly, if at all, superior to man; for they may be frightened
and coerced by him into doing his will. At this stage of thought the world is viewed as a
great democracy; all beings in it, whether natural or supernatural, are supposed to stand
on a footing of tolerable equality. But with the growth of his knowledge man learns to
realise more clearly the vastness of nature and his own littleness and feebleness in presence
of it. The recognition of his helplessness does not, however, carry with it a corresponding
belief in the impotence of those supernatural beings with which his imagination peoples the
universe. On the contrary, it enhances his conception of their power.

- from “The Golden Bough”, by Sir James Frazer, born on this day,
1854, in Scotland

Well, here it is – 2008. I wish you many many blessings and curiosities and surprises and happinesses and wonders and challenges and mysteries!

I am definitely going to spend a lot of 2008 thinking about the Mystery we call “God”. And reading what others have had to say about It. I have picked through The Golden Bough over the years. I intend to read it all in 2008. I like Frazer’s phrase “a footing of tolerable equality”.

I am caught by Frazer’s idea that the more we sense our own “littleness and feebleness”, the more we abandon our sense of power and attribute more to “the gods”. Is this just an abdication of our responsibility and of our role as creators? Of the fact, as Christmas implies, we share the Divine Life??

So many questions, so little time! But the consolation is, there is always more to learn!

May 2008 be full for you of Amazement!

Brian+