I remember a child who always drew dark black outlines around everything she colored. It was a stark, beautiful way of making the colors stand out. It was a simple way of accenting what she saw and loved, creating borders that delineated the edges of her creations.
God creates the world and all the beautiful colors and all the beautiful people who add to the coloring. Religion draws the big black borders that simplify it for the people in their world.
The danger is in the understanding. A simple word like wind can be translated in so many different ways, depending on how it is said and used and understood. Imagine all the words of God and all the ways they are written and translated and re translated and understood and misunderstood.
Humanity is the perfectly imperfect reflection of our creator. Free will changes everything. Look at the story of Abraham, a tract that seems to encourage martyrdom, but is it God's will, or Abraham's misunderstanding that causes him to be willing to sacrifice his son? God's intervention certainly does not allow it to happen.
Look at Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, three times he prays as if truly believing there is a chance he will not be sacrificed, that there is a choice. In the end, it is man who sacrifices him.
Borders can highlight and borders can keep something from expanding and growing. Borders can even be used to manipulate understanding. Perhaps it is time to stop highlighting the borders and look at the entire picture.
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