Dear God,

How did you know you were God? Charlene

Dear God,

Did you mean for the giraffe to look like that or was it an accident? Norma

Dear God,

Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don't you just keep the ones you got now? Jane

These letters, from the book, Children's Letters to God, is a book I often turn to when my faith becomes cloudy and uncomfortable.

I turn to them because I wish for that certainty of faith and I turn to them when I am trying to counsel someone in search of their belief. As young children, our faith is untried. A kids' world is a comfortable place in which God directly intercedes with needs and prayers. We believed that God truly heard our prayers, and answered them. In those days, we patiently waited for God's miracles.

However, as we matured, we did not receive reassurance that God was involved in our daily activities. Doubt crept into our thoughts and voices when we tried to pray. Life experiences- the death of a friend, the illness of a grandparent, a move away from a beloved friend- challenged our faith.

William James, in his classic work “The Varieties of Religious Experience” writes of once born and twice born people. The once born are people who lived their life without ever experiencing anything that shatters or complicates their faith…. Their understanding of God when they are old is not that different from their view of God when they were children, a benign heavenly parent who keeps the world neat and orderly.

In contrast, James' twice born souls are people who lose their faith and then regain it, but their faith is very different from the one they lost. Instead of seeing a world flooded with sunshine, as the once born always do, they see a world where the sun struggles to come out after the storm but always manages to reappear. Theirs is a less cheerful, less confident, more realistic outlook… and like the bone that breaks and heals stronger at the broken place, like the string that is stronger where it broke and was knotted, it is a stronger faith than before because it has overcome a lack of trust and returned to become a more solid foundation.

Perhaps what's most uncomfortable about God is that while we know we believe, we don't know what we believe. Rabbi Neil Gilman calls this the “head work” of Judaism. It is a struggle to understand and clarify our ideas and ideals about religion, and in particular, God. Many of us have not been given the opportunity to do the head work of Judaism, and so have not grappled with our image of God.

How is it possible to attempt to ask for forgiveness from God if we don't know what we believe? How is it possible to turn to God in times of pain, or frustration, without understanding with whom we are communicating?

We can't. So, instead, when faced with these dilemmas, many of us simply turn off. In worship, we read the words on the page-but don't ponder them. We go through the struggles of life, rejecting a potentially helpful source-because it's too uncomfortable. Because we don't know what we believe.

A few weeks ago, while I was channel surfing at home, I passed, as usual, one of the many religious stations. For a moment, I paused and listened. I was fascinated. The pastor was calling on the congregation to allow God into their hearts to turn them from their evil ways. As I watched, I was struck by how many times God was invoked. God was a comforting friend, an intimate partner in their lives.

For many Christians, God is personal, openly discussed and active in their lives. I am a little jealous - wouldn't it be great to know and be so comfortable with our theology? To be able to connect so completely with God and to be so sure of our theology would indeed be comforting.

Ultimately, I believe that we want to know that God hears us and is “there” for us, kind of like a watchful parent. But we have been disappointed. Our prayers have gone unanswered; life's turns have confused us and left us feeling stranded. We have been disappointed in God.

To become more comfortable with God, we must be willing to grapple with our theology. A midrash shows that our visions of God can be quite varied: God is like a mirror, which never changes, yet everyone who looks into it will find a different face. God is the same, but we are each different, each needing different “faces” of God. This concept that God is different to each of us requires serious “head work”. Harold Kushner underlines how hard it is for us to work on our theology: “…the idea of God is a different one even for adults to understand, that our conception of it keeps on changing as we grow older and understand more, that our primary religious duty is to search, question, to evaluate and to try to comprehend.” (Harold Kushner, 35)

I have an amusing cartoon handout called “Mini Theologies” from Joel Grishaver. On it, different popular views of God are summarized. One is called the watchmaker. As a watchmaker makes a watch, he puts it together, winds it up, and lets it run. God, too, in this understanding, works the same way. God created the world, and left it to run on its own. This philosophy removes God from us, and also makes it quite hard to develop a relationship with God at all. Another possible view is that God is a puppet master. In this understanding, God pulls all the strings, controlling the world, setting our future, and working miracles. In this case, we do not have free will, and all is decided for us. Once again, it becomes hard to create a relationship with God. If all is already decided-why communicate?

A third mini theology can be called the “Jiminy Cricket”. God is the still small voice that whispers in our ear, offering us the feeling that we are doing right or wrong. In this, the relationship that we have with God is much more intimate. God is our partner in our decisions-not removed, or controlling, but with us as we move on our own path through life.

The Jiminy Cricket theology is intriguing. It comes from the story of our prophet Elijah. Elijah had escaped into the wilderness feeling afraid, dejected, forlorn, and depleted. He was being chased by all, and trusted by no one. Elijah had reached the end of his rope. After the one-day journey, Elijah utters an anguished plea for death, imploring, " It is too much. Take my life now, Eternal One; I am no better than my forebears." He then encounters an angel who comforts him and provides him with sustenance. The angel directs him to take a forty day trek to Mt. Horeb, (also known as Sinai). Elijah climbs the mountain, enters a cave, and waits as the Holy One passes before him. The text reads:

And God said: Go and stand before the Eternal, on the mountaintop . . . A furious wind split mountains and shattered rocks in the presence of the Eternal, but the Eternal was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake occurred-but the Eternal was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, fire-but the Eternal was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still, small voice. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his mantle about his face and went out, standing at the entrance of the cave. A still small voice called to him, saying: What are you doing here, Elijah?

Down and out, full of anguish and despair, in serious personal crisis, Elijah perceived God not in the wind, not in the earthquake, and not in the fire, but in the Kol D'mamah Dakah, the still, small voice. God and Elijah met intimately, and Elijah's faith was restored. In fact, like the broken bone that heals stronger than before, Elijah's faith was more powerful than before.

For us, the still small voice allows us to have a relationship with God. It can, of course, be described as our conscience. But it is more than that-it is the voice that offers wisdom when there shouldn't be any. It is the voice that brings patience when there seems to be no more; it is the voice that offers strength when it is most needed.

The relationship with God is explored in our afternoon reading of the book of Jonah on Yom Kippur. In this story, God commands Jonah to go to Nineveh to proclaim judgment upon the city because all of the people in Nineveh were considered wicked. But Jonah attempts to avoid from this task, and boards a ship to Tarshish. This is the opposite direction of Nineveh! God, however, thwarts Jonah's escape by whipping up a violent storm that threatens the security and safety of the boat. The sailors discover that the storm has come because their passenger, Jonah, is fleeing from the task God has given him. At Jonah's suggestion, they throw him overboard in order to calm the storm. Then, Jonah's adventure-the famous episode of Jonah's survival in the belly of the whale-continues.

Inside the whale, Jonah learns an important lesson: he cannot avoid God. The fish then deposits him in a very unglamorous way-actually the whale became quite sick and actually, well, vomited Jonah on to the beach near the city of Nineveh. Jonah begins to fulfill his prophetic mission, announcing that the evil city is doomed. The Ninevites believe God's word and, within three days, the king and all the people go into mourning to repent for their sins.

When God sees that they have abandoned their evil ways, God renounces their punishment, changing the prophecy. This distresses Jonah. He is enraged that God has shown mercy to people who are not only sinners, but aren't even Jews! To attempt to help Jonah understand this decision, God makes a huge leafy plant grow over Jonah's head providing shade from the oppressive sun. However, the very next day, the sun (God) destroys the plant. Jonah faints from the heat; and cries out to God in anger. God points out that if Jonah cared so much for the plant, that he neither created nor tended, why should God not be concerned for the people of Nineveh? The story ends with Jonah's. Jonah does not respond to God's query. We are left to come up with the answer on our own.

The discussions about God and Jonah have spanned the centuries. What's apparent is that Jonah learns something the hard way: he could not escape God. No matter where he went- on a boat in the middle of the ocean; in the belly of a big whale; in the city of Nineveh; under the shade of a leafy tree-no matter what the adventure, God is there.

We also learn that we cannot run away from God. Many of us try to run away from God because we are so uncomfortable. When we do not engage in the challenge of understanding our theology, we are essentially shirking our duties, like Jonah because our task-that of understanding our personal theology-is being shirked. Even in the belly of the whale, God found Jonah. Jonah understood the necessity of responding to God, and prayed for three days to God for forgiveness. Let us not be like Jonah, begging for forgiveness in the belly of a whale. Let us face our challenge head on, ready to come to terms with our theology.

What's uncomfortable about God? For many of us, we are uncomfortable because we have run away from trying to understand God, as we have moved through life. The mirror in which we look at life will change. But so, too, must our understanding of God. As our lives and our needs are not static, it will become necessary to redefine, to grapple with who God is for us at that time.

As we are created Btzelem Elohim, in the image of God, we are partners in the continuing creation of the world. As such, we cannot ignore our job as caretakers of the world. But this is also true: we cannot ignore the partnership. When we nurture the relationship the connection that we have with God will be sure and strong. We will become more comfortable sharing both the agonies and ecstasies of life. When we cry out to God in pain, we will be able to listen for the still, small voice. When we celebrate our blessings, the presence of God dancing with us will be felt.

We must learn from Elijah to listen for the gentle voice of God. We must learn from Jonah that God is always present, and the relationship is always ready to be nurtured so that it may blossom. We must know that God is present, wherever we are, and emerge from the belly of the whale, ready to face the challenge.

Amen.

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