What does God look like to a child?

My favorite local columnist. Once upon a time I though he had the worlds best job. As time has gone by I realized how tough it would be to come up with these things on a regular basis...

Dec. 1, 2006, 4:58PM
What does God look like to a child?

By LEON HALE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

CHESTER B., one of the members of our Old Codgers Club, called me the other morning and asked if I had any ideas about what God looks like.

This matter was brought into Chester's life by one of his great-grandchildren, who is 4 years old.

The child is visiting in his home, and one of Chester's great-grandfatherly duties has included reading bedtime stories. Some of these stories are about shepherds, and angels, and heaven, and prophets, and other particulars dealt with in the Bible, including God.

"She keeps asking me what God looks like," Chester said on the phone. "I tell her I don't know, and she asks why I don't know. She keeps turning the pages, looking for a picture of God. The book has pictures of sheep, and angels, and old guys with long white beards, and she wants to know why it hasn't got a picture of God."

That seemed to me like a fair question. How did he answer it?

Go find out where the conversation went...

Source: What does God look like to a child? | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle

The Writer's Almanac for Sunday, December 3, 2006

Great images in words. Even I, a southern boy who has had few run-ins with frozen precipitation, can see the images as I read these lines. Highly appropriate following last weeks storms. Thanks Garrison, a great pick for a December morning.

Poem: "Snow in the Suburbs," by Thomas Hardy. Public Domain.
Snow in the Suburbs
Every branch big with it,
Bent every twig with it;
Every fork like a white web-foot;
Every street and pavement mute:
Some flakes have lost their way, and grope back upward, when
Meeting those meandering down they turn and descend again.
The palings are glued together like a wall,
And there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall.
A sparrow enters the tree,
Whereon immediately
A snow-lump thrice his own slight size
Descends on him and showers his head and eyes,
And overturns him,
And near inurns him,
And lights on a lower twig, when its brush
Starts off a volley of other lodging lumps with a rush.
The steps are a blanched slope,
Up which, with feeble hope,
A black cat comes, wide-eyed and thin;
And we take him in.

Source: The Writer's Almanac for Sunday, December 3, 2006

Photo for today...

This is our front porch on Christmas Day 2004 when we had a white Christmas. The only one I've ever seen.