Books in Nightstands

©2022 by VernonMilesKerr and VernonMillesKerr.com

#FirstCuppaJoe for Sep 25 (thread)

My caffeinated meditations this morning were inspired by the nightstand in this Marriott-branded hotel, near the infusion center where I’m getting chemo-therapy. There is a Holy Bible, donated by the Gideons, and there is a Book of Mormon, given by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Apparently, someone, somewhere, felt that just having those “Holy Books,” present—in the case of the Gideons—in every hotel on Earth, will somehow help God to “reach” those who seek Him, who may, out of pure curiosity pick up one of these tomes and riffle through its pages. I wonder what can be found in the nightstand of Marriott-branded properties in Israel or Pakistan?

Both of the traditions, which I have handy right here, purportedly emanated from the deliverance of the direct word of God: one on stone and the other on “golden plates.”
One has to wonder how many plates it took to contain the hundreds of pages of the Book of Mormon, and how did the finder “dispose” of all that gold? I’m sure there is a logical answer to that, out there within that tradition, today.

Both traditions, the general Christian tradition of the “Holy Bible” and Mormon tradition, claim God as their God. The other great tradition, Islam, claims Allah as its God.
Is God, anyone’s God? Does He secretly have a favorite Church, Temple, or Mosque? (I’m just hypothesizing, for the sake of rhetoric, that there is a supreme, active intelligence that transcends everything physical that we know of—or can even conceive of—and that He, She or It is aware of this little planet and its sentient inhabitants—and, actually is rooting for its ultimate success.)

So does such a being show favorites? By the same token, does He (the being has no gender, obviously and since It is much smarter than we, in my opinion we should refer to this being as He, because “It”sounds so dismissive.)
Does He have favorites? I can tell you having been within a not-insignificant, so-called “Christian” cult myself for two decades, they all think so. “We are the TRUE CHURCH, the true church, the true church, the tr….”

That cult disdained all Christian Holidays because (historically it is true, Easter, Christmas, even Birthdays, were pagan holidays that were conveniently given a Christian gouache by the Catholic Church, in order to facilitate proselyting.) But did our keeping of Jewish Holidays make us the TRUE CHURCH? Hell no. Would the supreme being I’ve described care one whit about which “Holy Days” our pitiful little group of humans got together and “feasted” over? Again, Hell no. God is Nobody’s god and God is Everybody’s God. He doesn’t claim, nor does He endorse anyone’s religious “organization.” They are all filled with error, yet, He still loves each of their parishioners. He can reach them on his terms, He can call them using any means. A few have no doubt been “called” by perusing these two books in the nightstand. If so, they have been called into an organization rife with error, as I was. But in hindsight, He was in charge, I needed that internal look into how phony religious organizations are. I’m not telling you anything new. The daily news is rife with stories of ecclesiastical scandal. None are exempt. None are “THE TRUE CHURCH.” God is no one’s god. God is everyone’s God.