I never thought the Almighty would bear even a passing resemblance to Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl, but there was no mistaking him this afternoon when I took my younger daughter to preschool. He wasn't the graceful hippie I'm used to, or the old guy with the flowing white beard I recognize, but that's not surprising. He wasn't surrounded by stained glass from my parents' church when I connected with him 17 years ago, either.
God is very real to my daughter. She likes to have him close at hand when she goes to sleep, she takes him with her when we go to the supermarket or to pick up her older sister from school, and she likes to have him on hand when we eat. If God can't be on the table, then she at least wants him sitting on her chair, next to her. She can't get enough of him.
When she's lonely or bored, and her father is off doing important daddy things on the computer, my daughter starts playing with God. Before long they're having a great time together, and I can hear her laughing and singing from the other room.
And when she has a pain in her heart that she can't tell her parents about, I have no doubt whom she will tell.
I watch my daughter playing with God, sharing the secrets of her heart with him, and enjoying his presence so much that she can't bear to be parted from him, and I feel ashamed. All that I know about God pales in comparison to her understanding.
I would very much like to see God with my daughter's eyes.
Copyright © 2006 by David Learn. Used with permission.
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1 comment:
We've all been slammed over the head (or waterboarded, or drip-tortured) with so much "information" about God. Sadly, it has become impossible for most people to imagine that God transcends, let alone to give themselves permission to experience it.
Is God in the voodoo-spooky business of burning incense to (allegedly) ancient dead people, calling on celestial virgins and wearing talismans?
Is God rather about the work of enumerating and collecting a specific number of specially-yet-arbitrarily-chosen "elect" people, the categorization or recognition of said elect be hanged?
Perhaps God is the one thing that none of God's so-called followers, spokespeople or champions ever care to admit: perhaps, God is so much greater and yet so much nearer... so much deeper and yet so simply understood... so awesome in every way, yet beautiful not LIKE a flower, but IN and AS the flower. Not loving LIKE a mother, but AS those who show motherly love.
God is a doll, God is a guitar. God is the grateful snoring of a rescued puppy, the sound of the kind of justice God intends for God's world.
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