Refractions
When light passes though a lens, it is bent or "refracted." It is changed. We all see the world through the lens of our own experience. Here, Journeyers share some of those experiences and lenses with you. Refractions is Journey's community blog presenting stories, images and sounds that show how Journeyers see the world and the Divine. Contact Margaret Z. to add your contributions.
This project was very dear to our late pastor David Gentiles and is dedicated to his memory.
I'm a mother. My understanding of God is strongly influenced by my identity as a mother. In fact, that pretty much IS my image of God: the übermama. I think about how much I love my children, how I try to be patient and forgiving, try to teach them and protect them and then let them make their own choices -- and then I imagine God like that, only doing it for real, (way more than I ever will on my best day) with infinite love, infinite patience, infinite forgiveness, infinite joy. There's a book I used to read the kids when they were little called Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara M. Joosse and Barbara Lavallee. In it, a child asks "Mama, do you love me?" "Yes, I do, Dear One," is the reply. Then the child, as children do, lists all kinds of "what if" scenarios: what if I make a mistake, what if I get on your nerves, what if I break the rules, what if I run away, what if I change? And the answer is still "I will love you forever and for always because you are my Dear One." That's God to me. God will love me no matter what, because I am God's Dear One. And so are you. Happy Mother's Day.
