The early morning hours are dark this time of year. A few days after the national holiday of Thanksgiving the lights and lawn decorations for Christmas start appearing. This one includes the festive lights in addition to a sturdy crucifix covered in lights and in the window on the porch is a 5 pointed star. The cross is where the earthly life of Jesus will end near the time of Passover, 33 years after his Christmastime birth, celebrated at the time of year with least light. Year after year the symbols and other decorations that reference Christianity appear here and there. And yet the moment we presume to comprehend God's infinity, we are bound to be mistaken. After all, how can a finite mortal mind grasp something that is infinite? The same goes for the 99 names of God. To confine the Lord God to a single name is impossible, foolish and deluded. And yet, feeble creatures that we are, we crave something definite; not infinite. By presuming to know the name of God we tend to believe that somehow we therefore know God. But a better way might be to work on unlearning your knowledge of God, since it is simple or mistaken inevitably. Neither a star (over the place where the baby lies in a manger) nor a crucifix fully stands for God. The false sense of grasping God's meaning and presence is best counteracted by unlearning one's assumptions about God.
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