God #1 and God #2
Recently, I read an archived interview of Madeleine L’Engle. One thing she said reminded me of what my friend Paul Vander Klay calls “God #1” and “God #2.” As this glossary says, Paul uses those terms to talk about two different aspects/characteristics/concepts of our one God—God #1, the creator, the “big” God of nature, the God whose great, unfathomable, un-understand-able being causes awe in us small human beings; and God #2, the person of Jesus, the God who cares for us down to the smallest detail of our lives. Madeleine L’Engle said:
We need to be able to imagine that the Creator of the universe, this unimaginably enormous thing, nevertheless cares for each one of us, counts the hairs of our heads, notes the fall of each sparrow. God being vulnerable in Jesus set the pattern for us.
Since I call this email my “Email of God’s Love,” it seems pretty obvious that my emphasis is “God #2.” As I say in my little blurb for each mailing, I figure we all get a lot of messages about what we should do as God’s creation or even just as humans living on this planet. My emails are to remind us that God loves us. They’re about his care for us—God #2.
I like what Madeleine L’Engle said because it combined both concepts AND she said to imagine God. I think our imaginations are another way that God speaks to us. I could write a whole lot about imagination, but that’s for another time. I do want to say one thing, though: we all have an imagination, even those of you who think you don’t. You may not be able to make pictures in your mind or imagine creative stories or all those other things associated with that word. But something as common as reading words and understanding them, or of making plans for the future, or thinking about how you could help someone else, so many things we all do as humans—they all require imagination. You have imagination.
Back to what Madeleine said. Notice that she describes God #1—”this unimaginably enormous thing”—that cares for each one of us—God #2. What she said embodies the way that God #1 and God #2 are one. That huge, gigantic, awe-inspiring being, greater than we can even begin to understand in our finite brains LOVES you.
When I think of how enormous God is, I often associate that with nature—with the starry sky, the universe, the galaxies, scientific phenomena we marvel at. But another “un-understandable” thing about God is what we call “the problem of evil,” why bad things happen, why there is sickness and suffering, horrible events such as the holocaust, accidents that cause harm, wars that kill innocent people, and on and on. We can’t understand those things, either. But they’re a part of life so they’re a part of the mystery of God—God #1.
In Madeleine’s words, she says THAT God, that “enormous thing,” loves me.
Maybe he cares about me and the details of my life more than I even care about myself. When my dad was alive, a standard question he’d ask on a phone call was what we had for our latest meal. One time as she and I were talking about this, my sister marveled at the way Dad truly seemed interested in details about our lives that even we thought were boring. I wonder if God is like that, too.
GOD loves you.