None of creation contained the Creator’s being…until us.

So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

            Pages into the story we are faced with a dramatic realization, something we had overlooked. The vast regions of the planet praised him but they were compelled to. The sun is an unimaginable testament to creativity, but it does not think. The stars and the waters, the mountains and the trees, the swift birds and the vigilant fish and the great lions of the plains all brought upwelling joy to their Creator’s soul, but not one shared of their Creator’s being. I draw back in shock at this fact. I was so overcome by beauty, I did not even notice it. Creation was molded from the passionate mind of God, but it was simply an expression of that mind.

None of it was kin to the Creator’s mind.

None of it contained the Creator’s being…until us.

            Unfulfilled with artistic experimentation, God took a monstrous risk and made another creature. But then, the artist did something he had yet to try. He took some of himself and infused it into the creature’s muddily molded form. In the same way Jesus broke the loaf and fed thousands, our Maker tore off a piece of the Living Bread and placed it within us.

Humanity bears the uncreated nature of God.

Yes, we are formed from dust, but within us is God’s “breath of life,” which is unmade, because God is unmade. Thus, this means, we cannot be unmade.

This breath of life has been called many things; we know it as the soul. It is a soul that thinks, feels, and chooses how to live. Other creatures obey instincts but this one monstrosity called man is able to choose. Animals eat when they are hungry. Humans can fast. Animals mate when it is the season. Humans can spurn all desires or gratify them all until they are raw and broken and destroyed. A soul is the image of God for it can decide how to exist. And it may decide to live contrary to its purpose, outside of its Maker’s intention.

            A soul can choose to die, if it wants. A soul can take its own life. God has given us that freedom, even though we were nothing but dust through his fingers. Now we can have dust fall through ours and curse the one who gave us this freedom. For within our bold or gaunt faces is the inscrutable mystery of our Creator. That is the divine secret of God. That is to be made in his image.

God made living souls in his image. Why? Why did God wish for another creature in his wonderland to be like him?

            I think the answer is simple.

A child knows it.

Why does anyone wish to conceive or adopt or share love with friends and live in messy relationship with others? To be in a family. What is the purpose of a family but to love and live together? Life is not meant to be alone. God says that in chapter one of the Great Story.

Our Creator is an intimate and personal God. And as we discover later, our God has never been alone! A cord of three is not easily broken and they always tell the funniest jokes. We are brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, friends and lovers, and we desire fierce intimacy because our Creator has always been in a fiercely intimate relationship.

Even those who do not believe in God; they are still mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and friends and lovers. They still fight the wonderfully messy war called relationship. We love and hate the other because they are ours to love and hate. They are ours! We all long to have one whom we can love and nurture. We want someone like us, or someone who loves us, someone we can love, to enjoy the treasures of earth, someone to share the joys of living. We want to give them ourselves, to bleed our souls dry just for them!

            Does it not seem like this desire for family, for unending relationships, is the most central to our soul? And if we bear our Maker’s image, does that not make sense? This Great Story explains our soul’s core; this God’s most desperate longing is ours—to love someone who is like us.

We desire a family, children and friends like us, because God desired a family, those like him.

Is it really so shocking?

            All Paul wanted to do was go on a date with me…just to eat and talk with a friend.

In a world flushed with religions, spiritualities, and other impersonal deities, only one God created because he wanted to share the joys of a family, only the God of Israel.

            But do you see it now! The Great Story has shifted.

This creative God has a new name. He is now called Father. I do realize, and fully believe, that God is Father and Mother. God made both in his image. But human language is weak and I am weaker. I have always called God Father for that is what I read in the Bible. So here, I will call him Father. But please know, that when I place a masculine pronoun it is still firmly with the belief that God is not a man, nor a woman, but someone that created us both. God is Being. God is a parent. He is the Mighty Warrior who protects us from harm and she is the compassionate God who hides us in her arms. Forgive me in advance for I see no other way to communicate God’s personal intimacy without attaching a name we would understand.

            So why did God create?

            He had to…his nature was too personal, too selfless, too composed of love.

            How could he not create?

            How could our intimate and personal God not live according to his nature, which is love?This God is a Father; a barbaric, untamed, compassionate, bleeding Mother. He wants to be one with us, in relationship. We were created for oneness.

 

Clay drops like melted wax

It coats your fingers, dries on your arms

Your head tilts with that look,

That look in your eyes and the curl of a gentle smile

Slowly spinning you form each finger, each arm, leg, the nose, the ears…the eyes

Quietly, diligently, simply, the clay spins in your hands

Your eyes swim with love,

This one shall be different, you think.

This one shall be mine.

I shall be their Father, and they shall be my children.

We shall live together and enjoy our land!

You laugh out loud, for you cannot control your joy

It is the joy of a new Father, a brand new Mother,

Awe at such beauty never before seen

Your own child