My son sends me a text message and asks me to collaborate with him to create deities and religions for his Dungeons and Dragons game. He is the Creator of the World. We discussed what makes a god, what is worthy of worship or reverence. From where does power originate? Is it organic or societal? Are there old gods and new gods?
Cognitively, we create, immersing ourselves into a realm. He engineered a fantasy world. And he asked me to help him create the faith. And better, he asked me to help him create the context from which faith arises.
What do we worship? What do we honor? What bends our knee and slays us? I do not mean God, the Lord above all ages. I mean the little gods, the minor deities that garner our attention and capture far too much of our focus. Money? Leisure? Technology? Weather? (Hello, Weather Channel!) We give too much credence to flimsy, vacuous things. And yet, they hold hostages, demanding things: time, money, psychic energy in the form of fret or fear. They distract and gobble up vital organs and essential energy. And we squander precious resources on them instead of the real God.
The trickery and deceit, the illusion of importance and priority. What is really important? It was spending an hour imagining the new gods in a pretend world with my son who rarely asks me for anything. And I gladly give him my time. My most precious possession, the rarest of commodities.