A couple immedaite problems with the last post. 1. I compare myself to and put myself on equal footing with God. I didn’t mean to do that, but I can’t think of any religion where that’s considered respectful… and it sat funny with me.

2. I may have incorrectly assessed the relationship of God to people as a marriage. I mean, the hymn says – God our father, Christ our brother. Other theologies may call God an energy or a Mother. The only time Christian texts call God a husband, I think, is as an example when speaking directly to husbands. Euuughhh… I don’t like to talk Bible, let’s move on.

How is the parental relationship different than the spousal one?

To summarize the most obvious difference, the parental relationship is more permanent because of blood ties, but somehow less emotionally intimate. There’s also a subtle implication that the parent will always be the more loving of the two. If a spouse dies, you can bond yourself just as strongly to another one. If Dad dies… your mom might find a person to fill that role. But you probably can’t do that.

I guess it would break down into two schools of thought. And despite myself, I find the parental view more soothing. Whether it’s true or not I couldn’t tell you.

God as a parent feels like a provider, someone who’s got your back even when you’re disrespectful, someone who takes care of your needs when you can’t, who shows off all the macaroni art you made and bursts into tears when you show good character, someone who would have given their life for you the minute they found out you existed, someone who hurts when they have to correct you, someone who’s been through what you’ve been through and sympathizes, and if you disappeared they’d never really move on… I really find comfort in that. That’s probably the school of thought I find most relevant.

God as a spouse, well, that works a little differently and maybe the downsides aren’t any worse, just more obvious. If God were a husband, there isn’t that sense of authority, instead we have a sense of equity. Like I said in the last post, he is just as able as you are to leave the relationship. His decisions would look for mutually beneficial outcomes. You get to help decide what role he plays in the home, and you get to base it upon the role you yourself feel most suited to perform. He trusts you with intimate information, and he needs your encouragement.

If there’s anything interesting about this whole train of thought I’m taking, it is probably the different kinds of jealousy and protectiveness in those relationships.

Every time I walk out the front door, my parents give me warnings. They overestimate the danger of my living without their presence. They’re overprotective, and the exaggeration of that protectiveness comes straight from the huge love they have for me. They never wonder – would she just stop calling us if she found a better family? They only think of outside influences that might steal me from them.

I imagine if I were married, there would be less fear of me dying. I read somewhere that one of the major factors in a good marraige is whether partners view each other as competent individuals. Assuming my husband thinks I’m competent, he isn’t so afraid for me when I take my daily walk to the mailbox. His worry is – will she leave me if she finds someone better? Would I leave her? The marriage relationship has an inherent weakness in it because it has to be built from scratch, by 2 people who have had the most important relationships in their lives simply handed to them at birth. The panic comes in if my husband thinks I’m talking to another man. (My parents wouldn’t feel threatened if I talked to someone else’s parents.) My husband would likely track the guy down and scare the hell out of him. It’s an overreaction, and in an ideal scenario, it comes from love. (It’s worth thinking about that love might really motivate this behavior, whether it reflects other personal flaws – machismo, pride, jealousy - or not.)

I’m getting a little smile out of the fact that you could call the first school of thought a “predestination/sovereign God” approach, and the second one looks more like a “free will” philosophy. Both are loving relationships, they just have different risks and different means. Is it possible that God relates to us in both ways? Or maybe that all kinds of relationships reflect a different perspective of a singular love??

Thinking about jealous reactions, I wonder about the people we know as religious alarmists. (Oh yes, yes I just did, you can’t stop me now!) Maybe it’s not that they want to judge people or pick a fight. Maybe they just feel like someone is disrespecting their parent or their spouse, and it angers them not out of a sense of national moral decay, but a sense of family. Maybe they’re warning you to repent because the end is near, because they have a fierce and crazy love toward mankind. I mean, it kinda makes the whole thing sweet, in a weird way. Sure, it doesn’t feel like the kindness of love, not to us… but kindness is easy when a good relationship is at peace. When it’s threatened, I dare you to see anyone behaving reationally. 

You know, though, what’s funny is that if someone said something unkind about me, or if someone was hitting on me and I didn’t realize it… ideally I’d want the person who loved me to trust me. That means, communicate the situation, and put it back in my hands. If I’m trustworthy, I can seek peace and understanding before I call for reinforcement. I can try to quell extreme emotions on both sides. Does that sound silly? Again, I’m not trying to say – this is what I’d do, so it must be what God would do. I just feel like understanding a little human psychology might clarify the weird shape of the box God seems to be stuck in.

But the least I could do, if that’s what I really feel, is practice what I preach, and let God speak for itself, instead of feeling like I ought to be explainer of all these random thoughts. Luckily, I’m not sure about this stuff, so I’m probably going to keep writing.