Posted by Roberta Grimes • January 17, 2026 • 14 Comments
The Source, Understanding Reality
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.
Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.
Cherubim and seraphim, falling down before thee,
Who was and is and evermore shall be.
Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
Only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
Perfect in pow’r, in love, and purity.
– Reginald Heber (1783-1826), from “Holy, Holy, Holy” (1826)
In the Beginning…
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters He called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in His own image,
in the image of God He created them;
male and female He created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that He had made, and it was very good! And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Thus, the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
2 By the seventh day, God had finished the work He had been doing; so, on the seventh day He rested from all His work. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work of creating that He had done (Gen 1:1-31;2:1-3).
So, God created this material reality in six epochs that we might measure as days, although they might just as well be seen to be six long eons of time, in a reality in which time is both flexible and highly subjective. We have very much later come to understand that Consciousness is itself the living God, and Consciousness actually is all there is. So, God created this beautiful material reality for humankind to inhabit as a spiritual school within the Consciousness that is God… And God saw then that this starter material reality that God had just created was very good, indeed! There is a second, somewhat different phrasing of the creation story that comes in the Book of Genesis right after this one. But my Thomas tells me now that this first Biblical Creation Story is the one that is true.
That second creation story is just human-made. But God did in fact create life on earth going forward from a dot of the first people and vegetation and the first beasts on a bit of land in what became Africa. And then God gradually created more earthly reality around us, and more backstory, as those first people’s descendants have needed to find both. All of which explains a lot of things, including why evolution happens in long episodes of punctuated equilibrium. We can forgive God for fudging a few things that way! Thomas tells me now that this start of the Biblical Book of Genesis is a simple and literal telling of what actually began this material reality, within consciousness, which is the literal Mind of God, and all there is. Then, building out from that spot in what became Africa, God has simply created forward and backward and outward from there. I said to my Thomas when he told me this, “So does this mean there never were any actual dinosaurs? God created just the bones for us to find?” Thomas told me that, no, there were dinosaurs and there were trilobites created as a history, although those periods were far shorter than what we now imagine them to have been. “But, yes,” Thomas told me, “God gives Godself a great deal of amusement in creating a lot of whole backstory and habitat for God’s children to enjoy discovering!”
So, how then does materialist science assume that creation happened? Well, in a “Big Bang” some 13.8 billion earth-years ago. And that materialist Big Bang theory, which is seen by fewer and fewer scientists to be, let’s be frank, at all a satisfactory explanation for very much, is based upon what are seen to have been the likely conditions of the very early pre-universe reality. But in fact, it solves nothing much at all, wouldn’t you say? Because no matter where you choose to begin that materialist theory’s creation of the universe, someone can always quite reasonably ask you, “Okay then, but what came before that happened? And then what came before that?” And of course, the perfectly ordered universe that then developed after the Big Bang, nicely set up within its tiny tolerances of space and time, and always making perfect sense, really should make no sense at all, without a Creator in place to design and order every micro-step of its later perfect development along the way. And yet, of course, this universe has continued to develop ideally, and to always work out perfectly, without any Creator’s guiding hand at all… or so they imagine. And so they try to tell us.
The material reality that developed under God’s control during the eons that followed that first Genesis story, that clear beginning, and continuing right up until the twentieth century, and developing backward in time as well, always of course has made perfect sense, with God patiently there to design and to control its clear ongoing development in both directions. It began as that bit of flat plain surrounded by that bit of ocean under that bit of necessary sky, because at first that was all that humankind needed to see; and then, over time, over centuries and then over millennia, we needed more and more African plains to explore, and then more oceans, and then eventually this entire round planet to which we could eventually stake our various human claims. We needed those farther and ever more distant stars to see, and eventually an ever more complete universe of stars, and so on and on. And as we have needed more reality, so God has given us more reality, generally with the help of human collaborators… right up until the early part of the twentieth century.
I recall devouring old science magazines in my college’s library, and there coming upon a strange old article by a research astronomer. How I wish I had copied that article! Now, this was in the Sixties, mind you, but this article could have been a decade or more older. The astronomer who wrote it told his readers back then that there still were many patches of sky that were entirely devoid of stars, but he had discovered that if you focused a telescope on one specific point in the universe where there were no stars at all, where it was possible to photograph an absolutely dead-black void, and then you came back a year later and looked at precisely that same point again through your telescope, you would find that now that spot in the universe which had been empty just a year ago would now be literally teeming with stars. And from now on, that spot would always stay full of stars! He said that he had tried this experiment a number of times with empty black spaces, and it always happened just this way. He thought that if you wanted to spend your career doing this, you could likely find all the remaining blank spots in the universe, and personally fill them all with stars.
Well, wow. I think now of that long-ago astronomer, as I better understand how God has probably always worked with human minds to steadily complete God’s creation, and the thought fills me with such delight! Now I think of that fellow who wrote that article as one of God’s final collaborators, still working as late as the twentieth century to finish the job of creating this universe as our spiritual learning-place that God began to lovingly make for us so long ago, with the process described for us at the start of the Biblical Book of Genesis.
All those who continue to insist that they don’t believe in a loving Creator God are foolishly kidding themselves. Because, to be frank, the odds are unfathomably long against this material universe simply holding itself together and remaining stable for even one more day; but that doesn’t matter to us at all, because God believes in you and me, and God loves us perfectly, and God’s love is far more than enough to keep this material universe forevermore rock-solid. As even today’s materialist scientists are at last beginning to understand. So, be of good cheer, my very dear ones! It may turn out that nothing in materialist science is as the scientists long have imagined it to be, but that doesn’t matter to us at all. Because we are ever better learning now that God has in fact forever been tenderly, lovingly right here with us, and has always been deeply loving us as God’s treasured and very much adored children, forever held close in God’s eternal heart.
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.
– Reginald Heber (1783-1826), from “Holy, Holy, Holy” (1826)
(Many photos are from Vecteezy.com)
Having received, from an early age, an education (indoctrination) based on the dogma of materialism-based science, the concept of “entropic doom” was visited from time to time. The idea was that all physical processes and chemical reactions tend toward disorder. Everything will descend into chaos given enough time and no additional energy input. At the same time, we were being told that the ordered Universe we see now developed after an explosion emanating from a singular point. Huh?! Order out of disorder? Orbital mechanics that keep planetary bodies in predictable positions in space? Or better yet, that organized life came about after organic molecules arranged themselves into collections and structures that could carry and pass along information and maintain an internal environment that maintained itself in an otherwise lethal external environment. Blind chance did that? Sorry, it doesn’t work. From the standpoint of rigid mathematical/statistical analysis it doesn’t work, even in the estimated time-frame the Universe has been purported to be here. A few scientists are starting to recognize that saying that organic molecules just happened to get together and life came about (somehow), isn’t explaining anything. The more we’ve studied the details of life and the Universe, the less we can explain the origins of anything using the materialist paradigm. It’s coming down to Consciousness, as noted by Max Planck, but it’s still going to take more time until universal acceptance. However, it’s inevitable that it will be accepted.
Hey Mark,
Thank you for your scientifically based reasoning about the unworkable, materialist, blind chance, big bang theory & physical evolution model.
This non-conscious, energy/matter based idea never seemed quite right to me, even as I studied science and evolution theories in college.
I didn’t see how neurones (brain transmitter cells) fired electric impulses to each other, via a gap between them, to create a complex human thought –
How exactly do these ‘zaps’ form, or give rise to, complex human thoughts? Details?
My physics teacher’s explanation lacked particular details on how this is supposed to happen. Even now, at an age where I am greying at the temples, I have never seen any step-by-step process given for it.
Nor did I see how ancient lightning struck some primordial, molecular soup and caused life to spring from stone-dead molecules. How exactly do dead molecules become alive – (live) survive in poisonous chemicals – (eat) absorb nutrients – and (reproduce) divide to continue life on earth? The actual steps to these living organisms arising, surviving and dividing are not clear to me…
As far as I know, no one can show me any newly created living cells, where life has been started from dead chemicals/molecules. We humans can’t seem to create one living amoeba from scratch, even in 2026.
The whole non-conscious big bang theory, including evolution of life on Earth, feels like it is missing some big ‘potential’ or possibly whole dimensions of ‘reality’ we cannot see.
Hence, even as an older teenager (who did not pursue a science based career) I wondered if the Intelligent Design Model explains the creation of the universe and life a whole lot better. In short, it seemed that wisely guided creation was more plausible than the materialist, dumb chance model.
Mark, you wisely mentioned the position of early Twentieth Century physicist Max Planck. And I’ve come to view things more along these lines..
To paraphrase Max Planck’s idea: He said that consciousness is fundamental to existence, since you can’t get behind consciousness. It is the base reality.
Hence to me, Universal Consciousness gives rise to energy which gives rise to matter. Consciousness is the originator of existence.
To put it another way, Consciousness starts, regulates and guides creation; the Creator stops it from falling apart or winking out, according to purpose. And if the true expression of Universal Consciousness is love (as my inner meditations inform me) then an examination of the nature of consciousness itself – and a deepening of our own love consciousness within – are going to get us much farther in our understanding of the universe, than blind science dogma ever could. 😊🌅🌎
Oh yes,, my very dear and so wonderful Efrem, so very well and wisely said!!
Oh my very dear Mark, you could have written the blog post that I have just posted even better than I did! Yes indeed, my very dear one, it is impossible to imagine to imagine anything but a consciousness-based universe, and one based from its very beginning on the cleverness of a Great Designer’s work. Oh, yes indeed, my dear one!
What a beautiful lesson today. I recall asking my teacher/bishop back in college how scientists can carbon date materials back to a time period that predates what is believed to be the creation date taught at the time (ie. 6-7000 yrs ago, that 1000yrs = God’s Day). His answer was that the materials derived in the making of this planet had to come from somewhere and that’s how the timing was explained. As I know we are not alone in this big universe it totally makes sense and your negation of the Big Bang Theory coincides so eloquently. Thank you!
Ah, thank you, my very dear Sheila! No, the supposed experts really don’t know at all, do they?
I really appreciate everything God our Father does for us.
His love is awe-inspiring.
I feel blessed to be part of his creation.
Oh, so wisely and beautifully said, my very dear and wonderful Thomas!!
I give thanks for all God the Father has done and continued to do his love is never ending we are blessed to be within his creation
As are we all so deeply and certainly blessed, my very dear Marie!
Thank you Roberta,
Always enjoy reading your weekly posts. After reading this last post I have a question. Does God tell us to be vegetarians?
“I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.”
Someone once asked if Jesus was not a vegetarian then how would Jesus kill an animal for food? That stuck with me and now after reading your post it popped back in my memory.
If God said “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” but does not say that these creatures are our food?
Aha! My lovely John Penn, I caught that bit as well! When you read the first chapter of Genesis closely, it does indeed look as if God is giving us the plants, bit not the animals for food!
I think that, um, well, maybe because God doesn’t tell us here NOT to eat animals, perhaps we don’t have to take it as a prohibition. But still, I’m not entirely sure….
Howdy Roberta! I’ve written many times now, and thank you for all you’re doing. I’ve recently found Emanuel Swedenborg, and I’m seeing a ton of alignment with all you have conveyed from Jesus, and he’d written this in the mid 1700’s! This was even such a surprise to me, but I’m sure you’re aware of him. It seems related to his NDE, and then prayers afterward asking questions, and being able to get answers in the spirit. Did he do a pretty great job as well and can be trusted fairly well? I see so much alignment all over the place now, everything fitting into place. Thank you again.
Oh yes, my very dear and wonderful Adam W., Swedenborg and his work can indeed be trusted! He was a dear and purely holy student of the words of Jesus.