Our Father

I've been thinking lately about God as our Father. I'm teaching at one of our church groups next week, and this has been on my mind, so that's what I'll talk about.

But you get a sneak preview while I find my way through.

The first thing I think of is that it's such a deep, rich analogy.

The second is, what if it's not an analogy?

Something C.S. Lewis talks about a lot (and Aristotle before him, but with different conclusions) is the way that the temporal often reflects the eternal... not because what we can't see right now is a shadow of what we can, but because what we have now is a shadow of what is to be.

I guess a good example of this is our desire to belong - to be part of an ethnic group, a nationality, a political party, a club, a church, or even a family. We want to be known, to be loved, to belong, and those are all good and natural longings. But we don't find their fulfillment in the here and now - to be deeply entrenched in the republican/demorcatic/green/whatever-Nader-is party will never begin to approach the kind of complete acceptance and "home" of being known and loved by our Creator. The means we have at our disposal now are temporary and inadequate, but the desire itself is much deeper, more permenant, and truer.

So here's the thing: becoming a father has changed me. What I know of love, of faith, of patience and care and hope are all worlds apart from what I knew before. And my understanding of how God relates to me and I to him has changed in very deep and dramatic ways, too.

But what if what I'm experiencing is not the final reality of what fatherhood is. What if this is the shadow - the analogy - and what my Father is to me is the reality.

What if?