so, one of my tasks here is to draw the pracovný list (worksheet) each week for our religion classes. as you might guess, this occasionally involves drawing god. now, i don't know about you, but i have no idea what god actually looks like. yes, we could probably just draw jesus (not that i really know what he looks like, except that he probably didn't have blonde hair or blue eyes, as he is often portrayed), but jesus and god are not exactly the same thing. i am also hesitant to draw god just as some guy. this is largely due to not wanting to give god a specific gender, but is also because we are created in the image of god, not god in our image.
i feel that oftentimes, we get drawn into thinking that god is like us, rather than that we can be like god. if god is like us, then the focus and power (unintentionally, perhaps) rests with us, but if we are made in god's image, then we have the potential to be good and holy. we have something to strive for, some greater good that can help us to be better. if we are made in god's image, we can draw comfort from that and inspiration.
so, how, then, do you draw god for kids who want something to color in while you talk to them about god? well, a lot of times i leave god out of the picture. just as in life, god is there, but not necessarily physically present. or, sometimes we just forget about god and think that god's not there. we put god out of the picture. this is clearly not the best option, but it definitely happens sometimes.
other times, i make it seem like god is shining from just off the paper, so there are little rays of light on the paper, but still no god. this is better than the previous option, after all, at least we have a general location and reference for god. it is not, however, ideal. we still don't have god directly in the picture. so how can we put god in the picture? well, we must find a way to draw god.
in the most recent worksheet i drew, the theme was god is holy (boh je svätý) it had to do with a dream isaiah had in which seraphim are around god (who is on a throne) with six wings, two covering their eyes, two their faces, and the other two are making them fly. the seraphim are singing "holy, holy, holy is god."
now, how do you draw this? well, obviously you need god and some seraphim and maybe an isaiah sleeping. monika made a basic sketch of what she was thinking and we talked about it. she had drawn basically a ball of light and a head for god. when i asked about it, she said that it could be without the head, just a ball of light, too, she had just drawn the head as a way to know what it was. in the end we had isaiah sleeping and in his dream bubble, we had two angels (with six wings each) singing " svätý, svätý, svätý je boh" with god in the middle as a ball of light on a throne.
cop-out? maybe. consistent with my theology? yes. we don't know what god looks like and monika and i may or may not (we haven't actually talked about it, specifically) have very different thoughts on what god might look like, but we both know that we really don't know. so, we draw light. i am hesitant to use the light/darkness metaphor, except that if we count light (the pure white kind) as a combination of all the colors, than i really like it. white/light, or god, is what happens when we all come together.
so, how do you draw god? any thoughts? any other ideas of how to draw god? let me know!
so, the dream/calling of Isaiah is actually the passage on which I was preaching when I realized I was being called to serve in Missions - i wrote that sermon, then went to a worship service at a nearby church and heard the worship leader read the passage... then sang a song in Spanish (it was NOT a bi-lingual church) and hit the floor during that song because I knew in a year, my life would be upside-down. That was in May 2008 - it took 6 more months to convince me that Hungary was where I needed to go - but that's the long and short of it, brought on by your Bible story passage. :P
ReplyDeleteI have no idea how I would draw that, but maybe I would have the kids draw their interpretation of it?