Wearing God: Clothing, Laughter, Fire, and Other Overlooked Ways of Meeting God [9780061768132]

Overview

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.

A landmark work of Christian spirituality, Wearing God reveals:

• Overlooked Images of God: Move beyond Father, Judge, and Creator to encounter God as a Laboring Woman, a Vintner, a Garment, and even a Comedian.
• A Deeper Prayer Life: Learn how engaging with these forgotten biblical metaphors can revive your spiritual practices and open new doorways for your conversations with God.
• Insight from Christian Mysticism: Winner draws on the wisdom of saints and mystics from across Church history to uncover the richness of these divine pictures.
• Engaging Feminist Theology: A thoughtful examination of feminine and gendered language for the divine, exploring what it means to encounter God as a nursing mother or one who births new life.