Dear Friends,
How many of you, when you were little (or even now), thought that God lived in the sky? Sure, our smart, thoughtful grown-up minds may have consciously rejected that, but it raises the question: Where is God? Where does God live?
In this week’s Epistle from Revelations, a great voice declares:
See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them
It’s a useful experiment for all of us, and certainly one that works well with children, to try to imagine where God lives. Draw a picture. Use your words. Imagine it with your heart. But, at the same time, what does it look like to take this piece of scripture to heart and imagine God living among us?
When I imagine what that might mean, I think of childhood drawings, the simple outline of houses and stick figure family members. If I were to draw a picture of my family’s house as a child, or of my apartment building now, where is God? Does God live next door or down the block? Is God in the unit next door? Is God’s door surrounded by a halo? Does God get mail like I do or have a pet cat like me?
Whatever it looks like for you, know this: The home of God is among mortals. This gives a whole new meaning to God with Us - Emmanuel.
Because God Is Not Just In One Place
In the Godly Play story, The Great Family, one of the things we say about the travels of Sarah and Abraham out from their home in Haram is that the people in Haram believed in many gods, gods who individually inhabited all different things - the rocks, the rain, the ground - and that belief anchored those gods to particular places. When they left Haram, then, they did so with the belief and the hope that God was everywhere, but they weren’t sure. And in each new place that they went, they felt the presence of God and built an altar recognizing that. God was not following them, but was already there.
So, whether you think God lives in a “Big Big House” or you feel closest to God at a river or in a treehouse or in God’s holy words, spend some time with this thought. Talk to the children in your life about what you envision for God’s life alongside us. As I look out the window on this peaceful May day, at the gray sky, drinking a particularly good cup of coffee, I feel the presence of God. Maybe God wants to have coffee with you, stepping out of that envisioned house or apartment or tent in the woods. All of it is possible and all of it is true.
Peace,
Bird