Sometimes wonderful quotations

Sometimes wonderful quotations occur in unlikely places.

For instance, guess where I found this one:

"We should take care not to make the intellect our God."

Einstein

This appeared in the front of a popular detective story that I saw in the library.  Sorry, I didn't write down which book.

This quotation reminds me very much of an experience my friend Ruth, who lives in Colorado, had one time in the middle of her Godwriting™. Years ago, Ruth wasn't 100% sure that she really was Godwriting. She said that it could have been all her own thoughts she was writing.

Ruth wasn't the first to wonder about that. How can one know for sure, because Godwriting, after all, is about the Unbounded, not the bounded.

Well, Ruth found out!

I must have told you this story before. But, before I go ahead and tell you again, let me give you a little background.

Ruth was and is devoted to God, and Ruth is equally devoted to her religion. She didn't doubt God or her religion. She doubted only the truth of her own Godwriting.

Then Ruth called to tell me about a spectacular moment that occurred while she was Godwriting. She was Godwriting right along when, suddenly, in the middle of writing down what she heard God say, God stopped and interrupted Himself.

Seemingly, out of the blue, He said sharply to Ruth:

"Have no other Gods before Me."

Ruth was stunned. Without thinking, she blurted out, "What do You mean? I have no other gods before You! You know I don't have any other gods before You. "

God waited a while and then replied quietly:

"Your intellect, Ruth, your intellect."

***

So many years later I saw that quotation in the front of a detective book that reminded me so unforgettably of Ruth and her Godwriting.

And then I thought of it again and so wrote this blog entry.

This quote in the front of the detective novel also reminded me so clearly of how our intellect can get in the way -- not in the way of God -- but in the way of our perceived closeness to God.

What is the merit of human doubting next to God's Existence? I mean, compare this puny doubt on one hand and God's Great Existence on the other.

What are the odds that a writer of popular detective stories would plop down that precise quotation in the front of one of his books and that I would idly pick up that book at the Fairfield Public Library and read that exact quotation, which I had never heard before, by the way, and be so utterly reminded of Ruth,  and reminded of how Einstein who, all along, despite his huge intellect,  skipped over his intellect to a realm beyond dimension where the intellect cannot go? and that I would then subsequently be impelled to write a blog here once again centered around that quote.

After all, what does God have to do with the intellect?  After all, what does our knowing God possibly have to do with reason when God Himself surpasses reason with all-enduring love and places Himself in our hearts and won't leave?