The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [62]
But soon you are invited—through prayer, conversation, or the voice of conscience—to amend your ways, to turn away from sinful behaviors, to surrender to a new way of life. In a word, to change. You may see that selfishness is inconsistent with your newfound beliefs. You may feel called to forgive someone against whom you’ve held a bitter grudge. You might feel drawn to living a simple life based on the Scriptures.
That’s when the fear comes.
It’s natural. Change is frightening. But this fear is different: it’s a fear of where God is leading you. It’s the fear that God is inviting you to something bad or dangerous. You think, Even though I feel called to forgive this person, I’m sure it will be a disaster for me. God is going to trick me! One young man, thinking about joining the Jesuits, feared that by following God’s invitation, he would end up miserable.
That’s when people may need to revisit their image of God. In these situations it’s helpful to dig deeper and ask, Who is God for me? Often one’s image is stuck in the third grade. Or the image is not life-giving: the stern judge, the distant father, or the unforgiving parent. “The particular image we have of God will depend very much on the nature of our upbringing and how we have reacted to it,” writes Gerard W. Hughes, S.J., in God of Surprises, “because our ideas and our felt knowledge derive from our experience.”
On the day you cease to change you cease to live.
—Anthony de Mello, S.J. (1931–1987)
Religion itself may be a hindrance to developing a healthy image of God. In his book God’s Mechanics, the Jesuit scientist Guy Consolmagno, who works at the Vatican Observatory and has an advanced degree from MIT, speaks of a scientist’s faith in God. He notes, “One obvious way we can let a religion limit our view of the universe is by insisting that its doctrines are a complete and final description of nature and God.” God is bigger than religion.
Your childhood image of God may need to grow. When you’re a child, you may see God as I did: the Great Problem Solver. Later on, you might relate to God as parent. As you mature, you might relate to God in still different ways: Creator, Spirit, Love. Christians might find themselves looking at Jesus in a different way, too: not only as Savior and Messiah, but perhaps as brother and friend.
The way you relate to God often mirrors relationships in other parts of your life, particularly with parents or authority figures. But remember that while the image of parent is helpful (for some people), God is not your mother or father. This is especially important for anyone who has suffered physical, emotional, or mental abuse from a parent. Richard Leonard, a Jesuit priest, once said we’re relating to the best possible father or mother when we relate to God as parent.
Even if you feel drawn to the image of God as parent, remember that adult children relate to their parents in ways that differ from those of a child. In A Friendship Like No Other, Father Barry points out that when preachers speak of God as parent, they often use the image of the parent with a child. Barry believes that the “relationship between an adult child and his or her parent is a better image of the relationship God wants with us as adults.”
You also may be surprised to discover fresh images of God buried within ancient traditions. In her book She Who Is, Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., a Catholic sister and theologian, writes about feminine imagery of God from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. To offer just two examples from her groundbreaking work, the Hebrew word for “spirit,” ruah, is feminine. Likewise, the Greek word Sophia, or Wisdom, is a traditionally female image of God. The Wisdom of Solomon says, “She reaches mightily from one end of the earth to the other, and she orders all things well.” In Islam, the Prophet Muhammad speaks of the ninety-nine names of God, each highlighting an attribute