My fridge is covered with pictures of children and grandchildren. Esme in her crib with a big smile— and now she’s 10—how she’s grown!
If my fridge were covered with pictures of god throughout my life, you’d see an even bigger change. My childhood god morphed into my “teen idol,” and then into the god of fundamentalism, etc. Looking at the god line-up on my fridge you might say, “Hmm, I think the newer pictures are fuzzier.” Yes, they are. Arguably the greatest theologian of all time (St. Augustine of Hippo) put it well: “If you think you have understood God…what you have understood is not God.” Fuzziness is good.
For years I believed in a magical god who would keep me safe and happy. How comforting this false narrative– despite the fact that it lied to me and (even worse) missed the point. I see now that my (and anyone’s) life consists of allowing inevitable joys and sorrows to reshape me, my life story and my sense of god. This side of the grave I will never see clearly, “beholding the glory with unveiled face,” but I can cooperate with god as I grope toward greater clarity and authenticity, allowing my story (and thus my god) to be stretched, shattered, and reformed.
C.S. Lewis writes about god images as he grapples with his wife’s death: “….Whether they are pictures and statues outside the mind or imaginative constructions within it… images of the Holy easily become holy images—sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. God shatters it Himself. God is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say this–this shattering is one of the marks of God’s presence? All reality is iconoclastic.” Idols must be shattered.
Fortunately, god’s evolution is no new plot line. Scripture tells stories of god’s people clenching their idols rather than growing into a bigger god. When Moses goes up the mountain, the people decide god is dead and make a golden calf. They don’t really want debauchery (as Cecil B. DeMille would have it) but the good old days when they had gods they could see, touch and manipulate.
We need to be able to release our old gods to grasp the new–in scientific theories, god images, and life stories. When the paradigm changes–(such as the shift to a heliocentric universe)— not only is the present narrative changed, but also the past and future. The old story line—this happened, then this, then that—fails to incorporate all the data. “But I thought god would answer all my prayers…”
Most of us have read studies tracing human development in terms of intellectual understanding and moral decision-making. My youthful concepts–myself at the center of the world, my patriotism—these must change as I mature, like a simplistic model of the universe, with a grapefruit sun at the center. Most of us look back and chuckle at how it seemed so obvious how to deal with an obnoxious 2-year-old (before that 2-year-old was ours). In most areas, time passes, and cognizant of life’s realities (and aware of slippages of language and symbol systems) we see that we’ve had to shift our seemingly unshakable ideals.
Many young people I talk to are very sophisticated in their thinking as we discuss novels, movies, and world affairs. But their sense of religion or theology is stuck at an elementary school level. No wonder they struggle to let go of their deities, fearing they’ll find nothing left and go to hell. Or they drop their idol and move on—proudly atheist.
Stuff happens—illness, divorce, soured relationships, loss of a loved one. Our first response may be to clutch our god tighter, our second, to move on god-less. Or we may look at what we’re holding and realize it is an idol—not deserving our obedience or worship. Stuff happens– and the divine invites us to release our neat stories and our malleable gods: to allow a new god image to create us.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Mary Ellen Ashcroft, Vicar of Spirit of the Wilderness Episcopal Church.
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