The Story Behind God

It started with a song my niece sent me who happens to enjoy metal music. It's not the usual genre of music I listen to and my immediate reaction was GOD. Or Oh God. I guess you're either a metal fan or you're not. 

The artwork came.

And after that, the thoughts.

What If God Doesn't Have All the Answers

God is often talked about as the one who knows. The one who has the answers.

When things go wrong, there is the idea that somehow it will all be sorted out. Put your faith in God. Trust that there is a plan. God knows what he is doing.

But my mind went somewhere else.

What if God is a bit of a mess too?

How do we know he hasn't got an alcohol problem?

How do we know he's not in debt?

Maybe he's overwhelmed. Maybe he's having a terrible week. Maybe he's looking at everything going on down here and thinking, "I honestly don't know what to do with this either".

Obviously, those questions are ridiculous.

But underneath the humour there was something I genuinely wanted to explore.

Why do we expect perfection from something we cannot really know?

Looking Outwards for the Answer

It is easy to look outside ourselves when we want answers.

To another person. To religion. To somebody who seems wiser, stronger or more certain than we are.

There can be comfort in believing that somebody else understands the whole picture.

But nobody can completely know what is happening inside another person's head.

They can listen. They can care. They can try to understand. But they cannot actually be in there inside your head with you.

And that is where the idea behind GOD started to turn back towards the person looking at the artwork.

Maybe the Place to Look Is Within

At some point, you have to look at yourself.

That does not mean having all the answers. 

It means being honest about what is actually happening inside you rather than assuming the answer has to come from somewhere else.

Because however well somebody knows you, there are parts of your thoughts and feelings that only you experience.

Perhaps not even God can see all the way inside.

That was the question I kept coming back to. Not "does God exist?" Not "is religion right or wrong?" Something much more personal.

How can anybody else completely know how you feel?

Turning the Thought Into Art

Once the word GOD appeared, the idea moved quickly.

That is often how the work happens.

A word, image, song or thought gets hold of me and suddenly there is something that needs to come out.

The artwork becomes somewhere to put the question.

It does not necessarily answer it.

I don't think art has to.

Sometimes making the question visible is enough.

And perhaps GOD is really less about God than it first appears.

It is about the expectation that someone or something outside us will have the answer.

And the uncomfortable possibility that, eventually, the person we have to turn towards is ourselves.

Ze