Made in the Imagination of Love

& reimagining The Lord's Prayer as Love's Prayer

“Made in the Imagination of Love” Tempera on paper by me

(The following piece is published on Red Letter Christians blog 7/9/24.)

I love God. I just don’t trust God. The god of conditional promises. Of quid pro quo practices. Of formulaic certainties. The sow tithes and reap rewards god. The attend-church-worship-pray-read-bible-to-live-a-fully-blessed-life god. The “if you’re faithful, I’ll be faithful” god. I can no longer trust that god.  

How can a healing god who doesn’t always heal be trusted? How do you trust a god who “always” answers prayer-- that is, with a “yes” or “no” or "wait”? How do I know when my prayer has been answered if one of the answers is a non-answer? 

It’s true. I don’t trust god based on god’s own logic. I can’t trust a god of clear promises with fine print that rationalizes exemptions to the promises. I don’t trust god-- at least, I don’t trust the image of god I was taught to believe. The god that knew a plan, had a perfect will, and would fulfill promises as long as I kept my end of the bargain. The god I failed to pray for as I hung on the edge of anxiety until I fell asleep with the disciples in Gethsemane.  

When I really really really needed that god--the only time I naively expected a return on the promises-- “He” was not there.  When I fell on my knees and held my years of trust and faithfulness and prayer, that god did not respond with a yes or a no or even a wait.  That god did not respond. My marriage ended. My loved one did not experience a “faith healing.” My faith in the god of perfect wills was crushed.  

At least, my image of the god of perfect wills was crushed. And if we are indeed made in the image of God, then my image of myself was crushed. To be “made in the image of God'' is a curious phrase that brings to mind models of perfection like little statuettes, ego-ettes, mini-mes. It’s easy to see how that can be the framework for a theology of concrete divine assimilation.  All of us molded in the same image of the same god believing the same thing. 

What if the word “image” was swapped for “imagination”? Both share denotative roots, but carry very different connotations. To be made in the imagination of God…. Hummm. And what if the term “god” was exchanged for “Love”? As in, to be made “in the Imagination of Love”….. Hummm. 

If “God is Love” then it stands to reason that “Love is God.” For some reason, the popular cliche “God is Love” makes a better bumper sticker.  Perhaps the reversal-- “Love is God”--is a little more….dangerous. It puts the tangible ideal of Love before the abstract being of God. Putting Love first prioritizes the pure name of God. It reminds us that perceptions and actions that come from a place of Love are the only evidence of God we may ever know. Receiving and giving Love may in fact be the only proof of God’s existence that we may ever experience. 

Dare I suggest that replacing the word Love for God could theoretically eradicate the term atheist. If Love is God, then who among us can say we don’t believe in Love?  (Respectful pause, allowing my atheist friends to push back. The perverse iterations of “god” likely makes the term a necessity--a necessary good, if you will. The inventive ways that “God” has been used as a tool of malice, prejudice, and political agenda has made me an atheist of that brand of god, as well.)

Imago Dei, the Latin phrase for image of God, has at times been framed as looking in a mirror and seeing the same face of God. A clone of God, in the mold of God, a copy of God. Imago Dei is the opposite! It is looking in the divine mirror and seeing our own unique faces each reflecting a unique aspect of God. The imagination of Love is both expansive and unique--Imago Dei is not a divine reproduction line, but individual one of a kind renditions of the true spirit of Love.  

To be made in the imagination of Love has a ring of wild freedom that breaks the restrictive mold we have made of God’s image. Not a predetermined reproduction, but a free-form creative expression of that which can never be defined. No conditions of faithful reciprocity, no “missing the mark,” no failing to “achieve the perfect will.”  A God that truly is Love. A Love that is faithful whether we are or not. A Love of infinite possibilities rather than prescription. A Love that does not demand ritual in exchange for blessing. A Love that recognizes only that we recognise Love. 

When we look in Love’s face, Love reflects our individual faces back to us.

To truly be made in Love’s imagination is to be made in the infinite creative mysteries of the divine. If Love is infinite in its expression, each of us is a mortal iteration of that divine expression. We each represent unique fractions of Love. Our personalities are each unique fractals of God’s personality--that is, Love’s imagination. 

To be Imago Dei is to be made in the imagination of Love--in the delirious, ecstatic, hallucinogenic imagination of Love. Each soul is a mirror that reflects a unique expression of Love. We don’t all see the same face of God, but we do all see our own faces as expressions of the wild, boundless, mystical Holy Spirit that can not be tamed or named.  

I don’t trust a god.  But I do trust Love.

The following prayer reimagines “The Lord’s Prayer” addressing Love as God. I wrote it to recalibrate my connection to God as Love. It is a reminder that in all we do and say is the ever presence of limitless, inclusive, and wildly creative Love that is God.  

“Love’s Prayer”

Oh Love, 

Who is in all of us,

Your very name is sacred.

In the presence of Love,

Love will be done,

In our actions and in our hearts.

Grant us the Love we need each day, 

And forgive us for failing to Love others, 

Just as we forgive those who fail to Love us.

May we never wander from Love’s presence, 

But deliver us from Love’s absence. 

For Divine is the Connection,

And the Peace,

And the Wonder, 

Of ever expanding Love.

Selah