I saw religion everywhere.

i saw it in scientists. i saw it in politicians. i saw it on fashion tv.

i'm ashamed to admit that i watched an episode of "what not to wear."

for the uninitiated, this show is all about two hosts who pick a person to save from fashion eternal damnation. they explain to their guests what they're doing wrong, and how they can choose better clothes.
for instance, "don't wear these short capris because they make you look wider, instead of longer." same for horizantal stripes. stick with the vertical type, and so on.

then, they're sent, along with photos of several sample outfits, to NYC with a $5000 credit card, and a new-found understanding of the glory of fashion.

in this particular episode, they choose a man and his fiance as their congregation. they gave them photos of two sample-outfits apiece, and sent them together to NYC with two $5000 cards.

it began when our "preachers" told the guests that they were going to throw out all of their old clothes, like it or not. then they said "you're going to buy the clothes we want you to buy, and you're going to wear what we want you to."

then it really became obvious when the couple got to New York. they began to bicker and argue over the photos. these were to be images. expressions of fashion, metaphors if you will, but the man was getting angry at his wife because the shirt she wanted to buy had blue-green stripes, not the forest green of the photos. they were completely missing the point that these were examples! descriptions of the real, which is so much more than can be contained in a single photo.

and yet we do that with God, and with our own religion. Christians often focus on one part of the trinity, forgetting that Jesus is the earthly manifestation of God's eternal love and compassion, while the Holy Spirit is the Divine Spark that indwells all of us and gives us life and strength, and God the Father is the Telos, or the final cause, and very Ground of Being itself.

of course, it's not just Christians, but we're some of the very worst offenders. we get so caught up in the image of God, that we completely miss the essence of God. God is ineffable. we cannot say definitively what God is, we can only point. and while many point "over there," or "in there" or wherever they deem the best direction to point, often the congregation can't see past the end of the finger.

"oh, you're pointing at a tree, so God is a tree! come quickly, let us worship trees!"
"oh, you're pointing at a rock, so God is a rock! come quickly, let us worship rocks!"
"oh, you're pointing at science, so God is science! come quickly, let us worship science!"
"oh, you're pointing at a church, so God is a church! come quickly, let us worship a church!"
"oh, you're pointing at a father, so God is a father! come quickly, let us worship a father!"

"oh. you're pointing at yourself, so you are God! come quickly, let us worship this man!"

now that last one sounds familiar. i wonder where i've heard that before.

might we all be missing the "point?"

or maybe we're getting the "point," but missing the "at." what was He really pointing at? what is He pointing at even now? is a man all we have to worship? is your God just a glorified hercules? a modern zeus? or might these "manifestations" actually be the polaroids?