Ha! Backatcha!

I recently wrote about a unit secretary who was challenging me (me!) on scripture interpretation. Well, that's pretty funny, since I'm the least scriptural-ly credentialed person on our ENTIRE team (residents, externs, volunteers, everyone!). I had several conversations about scripture where I responded to her queries about key bible verses. I felt awkward and usually came back to the office where my Baptist/Adventist/Presbyterian colleagues helped me out.

A few days later, our supervisor asked us to think about God in a fresh way, using the following "mad-lib" reflection on God's characteristics. Try it, you'll like it!

- - - - -

God is....

God is like the color of _____(color), filling the _____(place) with _____ and _____. When I think of God, I think of _____(flower) and the fragrance and beauty that it brings. I recognized God's presence most often when _____. This is when I know that God is real. God must be bigger than _____ because _____. When I pray, I experience God as _____. Often God whispers to me _____ and at times yells to me _____. The name I most use for God is _____ because _____. I wish God could be more like _____ because then God would _____. The most difficult characteristic for me to understand about God is God's _____. God's favorite game is _____. I know this because God enjoys _____. The place where I saw God today is _____. In this place God was _____. Amen.

- - - - -

We completed this and shared our answers in group sessions in order to prime the pump for our upcoming Pastoral Theology paper we'll write for certification. It was very insightful both to reflect for myself and to hear alternative ways that my colleagues experienced God.

So I shared the "mad-lib" with my favorite unit secretary. She was intrigued. She took it home, made several copies and shared it with her friends, and filled it out. Yesterday, I got to be the one with a query for her, "Hey, how is your 'God Is' paper coming?" She, then, got to be the responder in our dialogue. I showed her mine and she showed me hers. We deepened our appreciation of each other in a fresh way.

But Moses protested, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?” God replied to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you.” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: Yahweh, the God of your ancestors—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you. This is my eternal name, my name to remember for all generations.- Exodus 3:13-15

What is your perspective of God, in this moment?