T.S. Eliot wrote "I do know much about gods; but I think that the river is a strong brown god." Like Eliot, I don't presume to know much about God. I don't even claim to know much about rivers. But I do believe this: if, as the Lenten season demands, we should seek after a deeper relationship with God, then God must be the sort of being with whom such a relationship is possible.
A genuine relationship--at least by my reckoning--cannot exist with a big bang or a cloud of electrons or an abstract Something Greater Than Me. I am not suggesting that those ideas are wrong. I just think they are inadequate if we're seeking after a greater (if still necessarily imperfect) understanding of what God must be like.
Of course, a number of problems attend such a project. For example, we may discover that we have flipped the biblical formulation and made God to look suspiciously like ourselves. This reminds me of Anne Lamott's observation that "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."
So I'll proceed cautiously and offer this modest suggestion. I think it is impossible to have a relationship with someone who cannot experience sorrow and suffering. So I'm compelled to conclude that God must have this capacity--and of a magnitude that lies beyond our wildest imaginings.
Lent, which leads us through the greatest story of sorrow and suffering ever told, is a good time to ponder this idea. And it is an opportune occasion to meditate about a Bible verse that never ceases to capture my imagination. It is at once the shortest and--in my view--the most powerful statement you'll find anywhere in the entire text:
"Jesus wept."
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