The Father Metaphor

I'm reading Anthony Keidis' memoir (Red Hot Chili Peppers) Scar Tissue and I've been totally absorbed in the book. He discusses his childhood growing up in California, detailing how his father was this drug-dealing super cool dude whom Anthony completely looked up to. His father exposed him to this crazy life at a really young age and Keidis seemed to love it...at least in the memoir he hasn't had the hard times with drugs yet. Anyway, the power Dads have to influence the lives of our kids is awesome and amazing...part of the reason why I felt it so important to stay home this year with Logan.

But all of that is sort of a side blurb. What I really want to blog about is God. You see, God is often thought of in our culture as The Father. I know it sounds like a "duh" thing to say, but many view God as the Father because God is supposed to stand up for us, provide for us, protect us, etc...and I suppose there is the whole relationship with Jesus. In the past, I found this metaphor useful in thinking about God, but it wasn't the only way I envisioned the Higher Power. I thought of God as a She sometimes...I thought of God as (and in) Nature...I thought of God as an all-seeing transparent eyeball like Emerson relates...I thought of God as this impersonal holy presence that saturates everything in the universe and resides within my soul...I thought of God as Science and Reason and Love.

But now that I am a father, I'm returning to the Father metaphor. I'm finding that thinking about God as a Father is really comforting and fruitful. Because a really good father is everything that I want in my God. The metaphor really works...I want someone to protect me, listen to me, care for me, watch out for me, be there for me, teach me, sing to me, love me, and do all the things that I want to do for Logan. The metaphor really has some legs, I think. For example, no matter what Logan does, I will love him. If he's crying all night long for a week straight, I'll still love the kid. If he turns into this homicidal maniac, I'll still love him. Sure, I won't be very proud of him, but he'll always be my boy and I'll always love him. No matter how many times he screws up or how many wrong turns he takes, he'll always be a part of me and I'll always be there to pick him up.

Maybe I'm fooling myself, and maybe I'm giving humanity too much credit, but I'm willing to believe that most fathers feel this way about their offspring. And if they don't, well, I think on some level they do. But regardless, thinking about God as this personal Big Daddy of mine is really cool. It also gives me some guidance as to how raise my boy. What is it that Big Daddy wants? As his son, am I going to listen to him, rebel, listen to him when convenient? Anyway, Big Poppa is up there and around here and I know he loves me and all of us as a good father loves his children. But hey, I'm not a kid anymore...I'm a big boy. Nah...Logan will always be my child and I'll always be my father's son and so on and so on. And all the while God is mostly proud of his children, wishing them the best and amazed at what they'll do next.