What’s in a Word?
A colleague of mine once said to me, “words are like freight trains, they come loaded with meaning.” Those meanings, as you may have observed, are often quite different for each of us. They awaken diverse worlds within us.
Last Sunday we spent time considering the images and ideas we each associate with the word “God.” We chatted with one another, wrote down our thoughts and placed them into two flax kete. Rachelle gathered them up and later, after a further chat with Chat GPT, crafted them into two meditations which she put on our church Facebook page.
I really enjoyed reading the meditations. They were grounded in our real-life experiences and beautifully captured the rich variety of faith experiences we have in our community. They also paint a picture of God, that I find earthy, attractive and compelling.
Take a read, sit still for a while, and see what awakens in you.
Mediation #2: God in the Tangle and the Vastness
We have listened—
To another voice,
Another way of knowing,
Another window into the Divine.
And now,
Let us listen again—
This time inwardly—
To all the names, all the images, all the contradictions
That we carry in this community
When we speak of God.
God is…
Uncertain.
Mysterious.
Sometimes faithful,
Sometimes absent,
Sometimes too big to make sense of.
Sometimes we wonder:
Do I owe something?
Is God asking too much?
Or not asking anything at all?
God may use us…
But not need us.
And yet still chooses us.
God is Carer,
Healer,
Intercessor,
Lover.
God is also:
Terrifying.
Exciting.
Wild.
Untamed.
God is found in blessing—
But also in pain,
In despondency,
In moments of desertion.
God is in the untouched snowy peaks,
In the genes that form our bodies,
In the galaxies,
And in the messy life we actually live.
God is found in the expected and the unexpected.
Cross-cultural, multi-faith, and boundless—
Like air, like sound, like oceans of mystery.
Some say God is a foundation—steady and unmoving.
Others say God is like a Labrador—loyal, joyful, a companion.
Some find God in redemption.
Others in rage.
In justice and in mercy.
In constraining rules and in unconditional grace.
God is ferocious,
God is gentle,
God is majestic,
God is just.
God is both Mother and Father,
And God is also Spirit—
Wind-like.
Fragrant.
Hard to pin down,
But somehow always near.
God shows up in feelings.
In the smell of something sacred.
In the fierce love of a mum.
In the language of another faith.
In the sound of someone listening.
God is unknown…
… and still, somehow, everything.
Take a breath.
Let all of these truths—or half-truths—rest with you.
You don’t need to resolve them.
You don’t need to agree with them.
Just honour them.
For this is the God
Of our shared faith and doubt.
The One we seek—
And sometimes question—
Together.
Let us rest in the wonder of it all.
Amen.