A NEW METAPHOR

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Let's think about metaphors.

Many of the metaphors about the gods have to do with war.  In Hinduism Arjuna looks over a field of battle and bemoans the slaughter of his kinsmen at the hands of one another.  The man driving his chariot to war tells him that the battle is an illusion.  Arjuna realizes that the man is the god Krishna.  

Allah and Yahweh are imagined as deities who win battles in heaven and on earth. 

Gods are also imagined as destroyers.  Shiva, Yahweh, and Allah have dished out lots of destruction.

There are other metaphors that come closer to how we experience our God of love:
God the creator, the lawgiver, the preserver, sustainer, and the liberator.  

God the father is a metaphor.  God is love?  Definitely a metaphor.

One of my personal favorites is providence.  Our founding fathers wrote a lot about that one.

God is a personification of being-itself; hence the ultimate metaphor.  

Think about Jesus.  He is the prince of peace, the lamb of God, the son of God--all metaphors.  Bread of life?  Metaphor.  The Way?  Metaphor.  The Truth?  Metaphor.  The Life?  Metaphor.  The Redeemer.  The Savior.  The Lord.  The door.  A light unto my path.  A lamp.  Messiah.  Christ.  Count 'em up.  

My favorite metaphor of Jesus experiences him as the heart of God.

Are there new metaphors for God being generated today?

How about the Internet?  I love the Internet.  Information is so easily accessed. 

Did you know that you can “youtube” just about any classic and hear someone read it?  I fell asleep last night listening to Paradise Lost.  The last time I did that was when I read it during the daytime.

So far I have not found any poem, short story, book, cantata, sonata, or symphony that is not free to hear on the Internet.  Indeed, some of the readers are famous like Anthony Hopkins who reads "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

James Earl Jones, Christopher Walken, Vincent Price, and Christopher Lee read "The Raven."  Mr. Price blunders a little.

Benedict Cumberbatch reads "She Walks In Beauty in the Night" with that resonating baritone voice he possesses.  Although the short novel is edited, Patrick Stewart reads "A Christmas Carol".  

It is wondrous indeed to me to have so much fine literature within earshot.

Other surprises present themselves in unexpected links.  After listening to Lord Byron’s poetry last night, I stumbled onto Charles Bukowski’s “Hell Is a Lonely Place” which was sublimely dreary and tragic.  I had never heard it before.   

And art?  Google any painting, sculpture, or building by name and there it is under the "Images" link.

I can look up anything and find good information about it.  There's no word I know of that I cannot find the definition, no name that I cannot find a biography, and no puzzle that I cannot find a solution. 

The Internet is so rich!

Has anyone thought of the Internet as a metaphor of God?  It occurred to me that God has always been as accessible.

This relatively new thing--this Internet--serves up knowledge, information, and art everlastingly.  So it is with God.  We just don't need a PC or a cell phone to initiate access.

God has been here since God created time.  How could it be otherwise since we move and have our being in God?   We are closer to God than we know.  Maybe God is so familiar that we do not notice.

The Internet as vast, boundless, and invisible makes an interesting metaphor as our ground of being.  Let's have fun with this.

Log on to divnity.  Every single thing that has being is a link so click on it.  The divine is so rich!

Blessings...