Thinking Great Thoughts

I ATTEMPTED, but failed, to attend church yesterday. It was a bad day for me mentally. insofar as I can have a bad mental day. I like to think that everyday I have at least one or a few thoughts worthy of thinking. I was unable to comprehend and follow directions given to me by a friend on how to get to the church, which I have been to before, but not for a while. I drove around for a while out in the country, but never got to church. I simply couldn't find it. I started wondering what was wrong with me, mentally. I do indeed seem to have a real disability in terms of following street directions, one which I have long thought I might improve if I made a concerted effert, which, honestly, I never have. Its a mental disabiity I have had all my life, and seems destined to accompany me for the remaining life of the universe, in whatever form. On days when I go to church, which are not frequent,I often never get around to writing and posting an essay for this website, either before or after chucrh. Maybe I'm so focused on getting ready for church, and so focused on winding down the rest of the day after attending, that it pushes writing to the back burner, and off the stove entirely. But I've noticed, most of the time, on churhc days, I never get around to writing and publishing, and I am not happy with that. Obviously it doesn't have to be that way. The only thing that ever truly keeps me from writing and publishing is me, and nothing else, including church. Perhaps, when I get home from church, the spiritual or psychic energy I would have used in writing,typing, and publishing has already been expended. And still yet, I remain a devout pahtheist, no moreinclined to convert to the Christian faith than I ever have been, which, essentially,is never. Like Goethe, who I think wa shimself not a Christian, pointed out, the teaching of Christ are the most sublime, wise,beautiul teachings possible.They have also been taught before,by a surprising number of people, many in ancient times, including, for instance, the Chinese philosopher Confucius. Goethe said: "All the great thoughts have long been thought. What remains for us is to think them anew". This quote troubles me a bit. I like to think that I have original thoughts, original on this planet, and in this universe. This of course goes to the age old question of "free will", which we all seem to think and like to think that we have, but which does not seem to be the case, in terms of what we know about science, reality, and our human minds. The basic problem is that if we assume that the laws of nature apply to everything, then they apply to our minds, and our thoughts are therefore the natural result of natural processes, like molten balls of metal and rock cooling into solid planets, with light gases collecting to form an atmosphere and oceans, and then proceeding, over a period of billions of years, to combine elements into sufficiently comples organic chemical compounds to initiate the process of organic reproduction, life itself. Einstein said it best, as he often did. "Either everything is a miracle, or nothing is". This is common sense, when you thing about it, but you never really think about it. A miraculous universe, or one which seems miraculous to us in its entirety, makes far more sense than a universe in which rare miracles occur spontaneously amid an overall process which is not at all miraculous. Why should anything exist at all? Would "God" be lonely in an emptry universe? My comfort is that I am able to ask questions for which I can never get an answer, in a universe which, if nothing else, at least allows me to exist, however briefly.