Lent 3.18.11

Today’s drawing is for a friend of mine who is attending a conference this week. Today she attempted to share with a worship leader how she was feeling about the exclusive male language being used for God throughout the worship services. His reply to her went something like, “the smart women I know don’t mind using masculine language for God because they know God isn’t male…”

Expansive God

My friend is a smart woman who knows that God is neither male or female, that God is not a particular color, orientation or person. She like many smart women I know experience God in many varied ways. My initial response came from a place of shock and anger and was at best humorous, and at worse catty (I said, omg, as in: O my goddess). Then, I was reminded of the time my youngest son, black sharpie in hand, wrestled with the identity of God.

He was six at the time and he came into the kitchen while I was cooking dinner. Keep in mind, that at this point he had spent the better part of his life immersed in seminary community and he could see a theological lecture coming a mile away. He attempted to circumvent this by saying to me, “I just want an answer… is God a boy or girl?” Of course I couldn’t help myself and answered him with a long(ish) commentary on how God isn’t really either of these things but we use different images to describe God as a way of explaining our relationship to God. After several minutes he sighed in frustration and interrupted me saying, “okay, okay I’ll just put one breast on it and that will be good.” And off he went into the other room to complete the best image I’ve seen of God. In his picture God is floating around with a tree in one hand and swirling planets and stars all around and one breast right in the middle of God’s chest.

He is so smart and I love his six-year-old solution. God is so much more than I or he, or the man planning worship could imagine. God is expansive, and this is my image of God for today.