In my last post I described the Great-Grandmother in the fairy tale as "a metaphor for God." This brought me up short, reading it. Because I believe, with theologian Karen Armstrong, that the word "God" is actually a metaphor.
When we say "God wants this" or "God did that" we are, I believe, speaking of something we cannot know. It's too big, too vast. It is by definition Unknowable.
But there's Something going on, some Spirit, some Force, and we've experienced it so we have to talk about it somehow. We use metaphors and fairy tales and parables.
When an atheist says, "I don't believe in God, I don't believe in Zeus either [smirk smirk]", I would say "I believe in God as a metaphor for something Vast and so so so very Good that exists within and around us. I believe in Zeus as a metaphor for power", and I would politely ignore the smirk.
And I believe in the Great-Grandmother as a metaphor for ... well, a metaphor for a metaphor.
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