Of Sacred Change

There are many metaphors with which to speak of God. In truth the language of the imagination is the only way to speak of God. The people of the Islamic faith speak of God as having ninety nine names, emblematic of the awareness that we can never definitively speak of the infinite; but we do have tastes of the infinite captured in the common things of earth…all of creation living metaphors onto who God is, and what God is like.

One such metaphor is change. I was taught most of my life that though everything around me changes, God alone is unchanging and unchangeable. I don’t believe that anymore. I don’t believe it because the created order entire says otherwise. It is all about change, and if the creation is a view onto who God is, and certainly that is the author’s point in the Book of Job, then God is all about change: The always poignant succession of the seasons an outward and visible sign; the waning daylight in the Fall; the inspired lengthening of days in the Spring; the ever changing nuanced color of the Delta; birth and death, siblings from the source of the secret of the universe; the crossing over events of our lives; from sacred ground to sacred ground; a cosmic dance of the coming perfection; and God with us in the dance, changing with us; becoming as the created order becomes.

God is now not the same as God once was, nor are we…. and years hence God will have grown as will we….and God calls this sacred process very good…and so shall we…..and the great surprise, ours and our God’s, as we move in time and space….the great surprise is….well it’s a surprise.