too small a God

I'm reading a new book: Quest for the Living God, by Elizabeth Johnson, theologian and professor at Fordham University in NY. This is looking really good! She lays out the truth that throughout time, and from the beginning as far as we can tell, people have sought a way to acknowledge and celebrate the sacred. All creation reflects the nature of God.. which is to say, that God is generally too big to define. and that most people have a sense for the transcendence and immanence both of God. We might be inclined (because this is what our culture has recognized) to understand or image God as an older fatherly male. While that has so many good associations for many of us, and can be illustrative, it is too narrow an image. Atleast in the Catholic tradition, the Trinity has been offered as an essential definition for God... Father, Son and Spirit. The Father has gotten most of the press. Ms. Johnson, who is a religious sister of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, invites the reader to consider that this emphasis on the Father has been misguided. What about the Spirit and what about the Son? As she opens the book she establishes rules for the journey of exploration, the quest for the living God: 1. the reality of the living God is an ineffable mystery beyond all telling, 2. no expression for God can be taken literally, and 3. from Thomas Aquinas, "we see the necessity of giving to God many names" It seems funny to begin the search for the living God and acknowledge that NO words will be sufficient to describe or name God. I LIKE THAT! I'm excited to explore some new ways that God is experienced outside of what has been traditionally lifted up. It's only natural that we would miss the mark. We're human, but it's the trying that bears fruit. Seek and you shall find.