God the What?

Carolyn Jane Bohler

Description

Challenge our common images of God by blowing the lid off conventional God-descriptors.

“We do not have to let go of one sense of God to take up another. Neither do we need to go about challenging old metaphors. What is crucial is to find a metaphor—or two, or six—that creatively point toward what we believe.”
—from Chapter 1

Let Carolyn Jane Bohler inspire you to consider a wide range of images of God in order to refine how you imagine God to have and use power, and how God wills and makes divine will happen—or not. By tapping into your God-given ability to re-imagine God, you will have a better understanding of your own beliefs and how you, God, and the world relate to each other.

Wonderfully fresh and down to earth, Bohler uses playful images, moving stories, and solid scholarship to empower you to break free of old habits and assumptions, whatever your faith tradition. She encourages you to explore new names for God that are not only more consistent with what you believe, but will also deepen and expand your experience of God. Think about…

• God the Choreographer of Chaos
• God the Nursing Mother
• God the Jazz Band Leader
• God the Divine Blacksmith
• God the Divine Physical Therapist
• God the Team Transformer
• … and more

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Christianity
• Spirituality
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 31 mars 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781594733383
• Langue: English

Extrait

GOD the what?

What Our Metaphors for God Reveal about Our Beliefs in God
CAROLYN JANE BOHLER
Also Available from SkyLight Paths
Who Is My God? 2nd Edition
An Innovative Guide to Finding Your Spiritual Identity
By the Editors at SkyLight Paths
God the What ? What Our Metaphors for God Reveal about Our Beliefs in God
2008 Quality Paperback Edition, First Printing 2008 by Carolyn Jane Bohler
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
For information regarding permission to reprint material from this book, please mail or fax your request in writing to SkyLight Paths Publishing, Permissions Department, at the address / fax number listed below or e-mail your request to [e-mail] .
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bohler, Carolyn Stahl, 1948- God the what? : what our metaphors for God reveal about our beliefs in God / Carolyn Jane Bohler. -Quality paperback ed.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p.) and indexes.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59473-251-5 (quality pbk.)
ISBN-10: 1-59473-251-5 (quality pbk.)
1. God (Christianity) 2. Metaphor-Religious aspects-Christianity. I. Title. BT103.B64 2008 231-dc22
2008032588
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Manufactured in the United States of America Cover design: Jenny Buono

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For John, who modeled for our own children and the teens in his religious education classes an unswerving commitment to naming God in ways that are liberating for all.
CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 God the What ?
A Lively, Multidimensional Faith
What Makes a Good Metaphor?
Bringing New Meaning to Old Metaphors
God the Shepherd
God the Divine Potter, the Divine Author
God the Father- My Daddy
God of Love
God, Like a Rock
God Who Stitches and Mends
God the Repairer, the Restorer
Metaphor Wondering
The God Not to Believe In
The How Great Thou Art God
The Jealous God under Question
The Abusive, Romancing God
Imagining New Metaphors
God the Bright Night Light: A God Who Provides Comfort in the Dark
God the Compass, Sail, and Wind: A God Who Helps Us Navigate
God the Divine Blacksmith: A God Who Knows What Fits
God the Divine Physical Therapist: A God Who Helps Us Maximize Our Potential
God the Nursing Mother: A God Who Cares for Me as I Care
God the Uncountable Infinity: A God Who Meets My Need to Be Logical
2 God Can Do What ?
God s Power
A Shaky Search to Understand God s Power
An Attitude of Inquiry
A Hundred Ways of Wondering
Powerful Options
Total Power: God, the Almighty
Restrained Power: God the Post-heroic CEO, God the Tough Love Parent
The Power of Presence: God with Us
The Power of Pure Being: God Is
The Power of Good Intentions: Ambiguous God
The Power of Love: God as Dynamic Love
The Power of Transformation: God as Persistent Life
The Power of Shared Power: God the Jazz Band Leader
Transforming Power
3 God Wants What ?
God s Will
God the Designer of All Events: Is What Is , Meant to Be?
God the Proposer: Dare We Say No to a Proposal?
God the Improviser: How Do We Creatively Respond to God s Nod?
Gardening: Keen Observation and Care
Families: Creative Integration of Cultures
Quilt Making: Turning Scraps into Treasures
Cooking: Necessity Breeds Improvisation
God the Graffiti Artist: How Do We Get Clues to What God Wants?
4 God Interacts How ?
Our Relationship with God
Twin Spiritual Needs
Like God: Identification
With God: Affiliation
Balancing Likeness and Withness
Implications for Human Relationships
A Closer Look at One Metaphor
God the Distant Decider Coach
God the Attentive Affirmer Coach
God the Good-Guy Coach
God the Receptive Resourcers as Co-coaches
God the Team Transformer Coach
Conclusion: Metaphors Matter
Epilogue: Personal Metaphor Wondering
God Belief Checklist
God Metaphor Checklist 1
God Metaphor Checklist 2
Reflective Questions
Discussion Guide for Groups
Notes
Credits
Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Islamic Scripture Index
Metaphor Index
About SkyLight Paths
Copyright
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

M arcia Broucek has a good memory. We encountered each other when I was first beginning my exploration of metaphors for God. She had the insight and audacity to find me years later to inquire how my quest was proceeding and whether my thoughts on metaphors for God had yet been published. I thank her for her generosity of spirit and her empathic eye for the text as she edited this work.
Colleagues in the venues where ministry has taken me have been supportive in many different ways. When I first served the Mission Hills United Methodist Church in San Diego, parishioners not only were fascinated with my explorations, but some were willing to participate in small groups to help me think through implications of metaphors for God for my dissertation. A nearby pastor, Rev. Preston Price, saw the relevancy of challenging static God metaphors, and his dramatic, outrageous, forthright use of some of the ideas we discussed helped me to realize these ideas could be shared boldly with church congregations.
For twenty-one years professor colleagues at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, were sources of insight and friendships as we mutually shared our disciplines and passions. Especially, I thank Andrew Sung Park, Larry Wellbourn, Kathy Farmer, Marsha Foster Boyd, and Ai Ra Kim. Students in seminary, most of whom were also serving small churches, were fabulous dialogue partners.
Back in the local church setting for five years at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Orange County, California, I have shared plenty of these ideas with parishioners, and they have been gracious in their reflective responses. I thank especially George and Sally Puente. Virtually every Sunday, George shared thought-provoking comments with an affirming flair, and Sally sang from the Source of Divine Beauty.
For the past five years, my sister, Marilyn Collins, has listened over the phone to every sermon before I preached it, and she is radically honest with her responses. Plenty of the ideas in this book were clarified as I responded to her questions.
Our children, Alexandra and Stephen, are evident in many of the stories that appear in this book. How we think about God affects the next generation in huge ways. I thank them for their patience, their sharing, and their love.
John Cobb and Marjorie Suchocki are God s Team Transformers as they do all they can to embolden others to share and clarify theology in very practical ways. I am grateful that they so frequently kick the ball to other writers, including myself, encouraging us to communicate-for God s sake!
INTRODUCTION

A wise woman once told me about her predicament. Until a few years earlier, she had written stories with characters that came fully alive for her. She also had a rich array of metaphors for God that would be there for her-or she would be able to let arise-as she experienced God in different ways. However, a physical illness caused her to lose her creative imaging. She knew right away that the fictional characters were no longer so alive within her, but it was only gradually that she realized her ability to imagine God in significantly meaningful ways had faded, too. This was cause for great grieving, for she had enjoyed thinking of God as Roots of the Big Tree or Dancing Presence-metaphors that would evoke genuine wonder.
In the midst of our conversation, she shared something significant: she believed that if we consider ourselves made in the image of God, the image we share in common with God is to be image makers, to be able to create, to visualize, to imagine. For her, this (hopefully temporary) loss of ability to imagine dulled her connection with God.
Our discussion and her soul bearing moved me. She helped me to treasure even more than I had already our human ability to envision God.
Though our metaphors for God are not formal descriptions, there is no way to think of God without metaphors. Our metaphors point to the God we believe in, and the pointing is experiencing. If we point emotionally, mentally, and spiritually to God as Comforter, then we are likely to experience comfort. If we point to God as Taskmaster, we might experience demands from God. Trusting that God is helping us in the process, we can listen, touch, and look all around us, joyously and expectantly ready to find and experience God.
Though no human imaginings can capture God s essence, how we think about God affects us. For example, the gender we have tucked into our metaphor for God affects not only how we think about God, but also how we think about males and females. During an avalanche of interest in gender metaphors for God, I wrote a book, Prayer on Wings , 1 in which I made long lists of metaphors for God that were feminine, masculine, androgynous, and gender-free. However, over time I have realiz