Wearing God
Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Lauren F. Winner—a leading writer at the crossroads of culture and spirituality and author of Still and Girl Meets God—joins the ranks of luminaries such as Anne Lamott and Barbara Brown Taylor with this exploration of little known—and, so, little used—biblical metaphors for God, metaphors which can open new doorways for our lives and spiritualities.
There are hundreds of metaphors for God, but the church only uses a few familiar images: creator, judge, savior, father. In Wearing God, Lauren Winner gathers a number of lesser-known tropes, reflecting on how they work biblically and culturally, and reveals how they can deepen our spiritual lives.
Exploring the notion of God as clothing, Winner reflects on how we are “clothed with Christ” or how “God fits us like a garment.” She then analyzes how clothing functions culturally to shape our ideals and identify our community, and ruminates on how this new metaphor can function to create new possibilities for our lives. For each biblical metaphor—God as the vine/vintner who animates life; the lactation consultant; and the comedian, showing us our follies, for example—Winner surveys the historical, literary, and cultural landscapes in order to revive and heal our souls.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Duke Divinity School professor and writer Winner (Still) combines spiritual insight and beautifully descriptive prose as she explores some of the more obscure biblical metaphors for God. This is not a book about God as king, shepherd, father, or judge. Rather, Winner looks at the ways God can be known through the everyday and familiar: a beloved sweater, the smell of a loved one's shirt, morning-glory muffins. Weaving together intimate reflections and scholarship, Winner demonstrates how metaphors can deepen an understanding of God. She is at her best showing how language has political and social consequences. In a chapter about God as smell, she considers the historical connection between smell and virtue and suggests that we might better serve others if we remember that Jesus "was a sometimes homeless man who... surely sometimes stank." Elsewhere, she asserts that the image of God as a laboring woman can remind us of vulnerability in the same way the Crucifixion does. Winner's honest, charming reflections stir the imagination and invite the reader to explore not just the metaphors she has chosen, but the treasure trove the Bible provides. Prayers and quotations promote further contemplation.
