The Power of Words

And they are powerful. Their nuanced shades shape both individual thoughts and social mores. An example?

Fair. My computer thesaurus provides alternative words such as equitable, bright, favorable, blond, creamy light, beautiful. How about Dark? Alternative words include clandestine, ebony, tragic, threatening, evil. I am fair skinned. My friend is dark. The subconscious trappings of each word flashes through the mind, casting each of us in discriminatory colors. 

In the book, The Shack, by William P. Young, God the Father is painted as a large black woman. The perturbation in my mind astounded me. Why did it feel wrong to characterize God this way? Because I have been worshipping a graven image, and she was not part of it. Words have had such an affect on affect on God, the modern version of a white haired, bearded Father figure has ceased to be simply a representation of a greater God. Rather, the image has become the god. Like all idols, this god has lost the power of imaginative thought, the flexibility of alternative forms, and the movement of life. He has become frozen in time, a graven image of words, as static as stone. The only few who can relate to this effigy are the ones who created him, after their own image.

The Word became flesh and called him "Father." The Son also used a hen as a visualization tool. Would it not seem foolish if we felt blasphemous referring to God as anything other than The Hen?

Until I can shatter the Father image, until I can see the face of God in a Young's "Papa," until I expand my vision to see a facet of God in every person who crosses my path, I cannot know the Divine. God is so much bigger. Every face is an image of I Am. He is, she is, I am.