Telling the Truth

Dear God,
I’m back!  So how did I get started on this?  Recently I got a note from a friend who ‘named’ you several ways.  She referred to you as the Eternal One, and talked about your image in us being the Divine image, the Eternal One’s image, and the Holy image.

I like this.  Not just because of the way it describes you, but also us as bearers of your image.  She suggests that contempt toward human beings is contempt toward your Divine image in us.

So I got thinking.  Especially about the Father word.  Have we made fathers into your image?  Sometimes it seems we have.  They might not call themselves God, but sometimes it seems obeying them is equal to obeying you.

But I’m not talking about whether we call you Father and/or Mother, though on SOME occasions Mother/Father or Father/Mother might be appropriate when addressing you.  For example, our children used to call out for ‘MomDad’ when they wanted one of us to respond.  As though we were one person—MomDad.

Still, referring to you as Mother gets me into some of the same sticky issues as calling you Father.  I know, Jesus called you Abba.  Which some say is a version of “Father.”  Yet the meanings we attach to Father or to Mother don’t begin to light the candle of truth when it comes to you!

Why does this bother me so much?

• My father’s version of you as Father, aka God, was seriously misguided.
• What my father did in your name in no way reflects the way you treat me or the way you think about me.
• In general, some of your followers have routinely appealed to you as God the Father.  Especially when it comes to keeping rules and submitting to male authority.
• Many men I’ve related to had high views of themselves as males, especially in relation to women and children.  This is wrong.  It holds us back from being all you would like us to be, gives us an excuse not to be fully responsible, and sometimes turns us against you.
• I also wonder whether global contempt for women of any age is a sign that we’re off track when it comes to your Eternal, Holy identity, not just ours as bearers of your Eternal, Holy and Divine image.
• Coded language habits are a powerful subconscious conditioning tool when it comes to genocide.  It gets people used to the idea that certain other people are less-than-human, thus candidates to be used, abused and destroyed.  Men as well as women.  Infants as well as the elderly.

So here’s where I am with this.  I like using descriptive terms Scripture already uses about you.  Not formal names, but terms that convey who you are.  They aren’t titles.  They’re indicators, pointers, descriptors.  There isn’t one that’s ‘the best’ of all.  Even if I could use all of them in the same breath I’d never capture who you are.

I want to try many ways of naming you, not just a handful of approved names.  I’m not trying to achieve perfection here.  Just something that makes more sense about you and about us.

Maybe this seems trivial.  But I already do this with people I love.  Some days they’re just plain so-and-so.  But if they’re behaving in certain other ways, I like to use other names.  Take Smudge, for example.  I know he’s just a cat.  But even animals have a way of showing us a bit about life and how to name it.   Most of the time he’s Smudge—mainly because I don’t want him to get confused.  But sometimes he’s Sweetie.  The Prince.  Prince Oliver.  Good Kitty.  Mighty Hunter!  Naughty.

You get the drift.  I just watch his activity and observe his many moods.  With you, it’s harder and easier.  For starters, I’ve got all those pages of Scripture.  They’re packed with narratives, descriptions, poems, parables and proverbs that represent you and the way you are with us.

I’m going to start trying some of this out—not all at once, but bit by bit.  If I’m wrong or way off base, I’m counting on you to let me know.  If I can be less self-conscious about your name, maybe I’ll be less self-conscious about myself and everyone around me who also bears your image.  I might even see something or someone I’ve overlooked.

Yours,
Elouise – famous in war, mysterious and desirable, child-terror living a charmed life.