God...big and small

"Here is the thing about God. He is so big and so perfect that we can't really understand Him. We can't possess Him, or apprehend Him. Moses learned this when he climbed up Mount Sinai and saw that the radiance of God's face would burn him up should he gaze upon it directly. But God so wants to be in a relationship with us that He makes himself small, smaller than he really is, smaller and more humble than his infinite, perfect self, so that we might be able to get to Him, a little bit.

Being born a human was not the first time God made himself small so that we could have access to Him. First He shrunk Himself when He revealed the Torah at Mount Sinai. He shrunk Himself into tiny Hebrew words, man's finite language, so that we might get to him that way. Then He shrunk Himself again, down to the size of a baby, down into manger finiteness.

Jane Vonnegut Yarmolinsky wrote, 'The whole concept of God taking on human shape, and all the liturgy and ritual around that, had simply never made sense to me. That was because, I realized one wonderful day, it was so simple. For people with bodies, important things like love have to be embodied. That's all. God had to be embodied or else people with bodies would never in a trillion years understand about love.'
Never, in a trillion years."

Girl Meets God by Lauren F. Winner


I have joined a book club. It's fantastic. The women that are in my group are smart, well read and interesting. We have read two books so far: Infidel by Aayan Hirsi Ali and Girl Meets God by Lauren F. Winner. Infidel is a must read. It's a story about a young Muslim woman who escapes her abusive and controlling family and flees to the Netherlands to seek asylum. She then, through her rise in power in the Dutch Parliament, blows the whistle on the treatment of women in the Muslim religion/culture. Tolerance is the rule of thumb in Holland (It was so interesting to me that Holland is such a different country now than it was when my Grandmother immigrated.), and Aayan urges the Dutch to forgo tolerance for human rights. It is an eye opening, disturbing and educational memoir. Every American should read it, if not just to understand the culture that our country is dealing with. The Muslims hate Americans with severe intensity, and the title of the book was a double entendre: Aayan was an infidel for her betrayal, in leaving her culture, and in denying her religion, and Americans are infidels because of our unbelief in Allah. Infidels must be killed, annihilated.

Girl Meets God was not so much of a page turner, but it was a quiet and reflective tale of a woman's spiritual journey from Judaism to Christianity. I've always thought that if I wasn't a Christian, I'd be Jewish. There's something about that group of people: their tenacity, their sense of culture and family, their commitment, that really is attractive to me. I believe the author embraced Judaism as a youth because she was looking for those things in her life. Through her writing, I have learned a bit more about being Jewish, and I am glad that Christ claimed me as His. And, really, that is what this story is about. Winner vacillates between the two religions (her mother is Southern Baptist and her father is Jewish - random!). She put into words my many feelings towards God (see the above quote) but never could communicate. Christ claimed her (and me!) as his, and even though she is extremely smart, she accepts the mystery, beauty and scandal of the Incarnation, crucifixion, and gift of Grace. She can't fully explain it, though she does try, and acceptance, thankfulness and appreciation for His "indescribable gift" abound. This book is slow, but it is a rich story that makes you think about God in a bit of a different fashion.

Our next book is The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I've heard great things about it, so I'll let you know what I think. My favorite places to get books are Costco and half.com. Half.com is a website that allows people to buy and sell their used or new books. You can find some great deals, so check it out!