Reflections on Moby Dick image

I love this image of the whalers sitting in their frail craft above the looming Moby Dick, perhaps oblivious to his presence, perhaps sensing it but unsure, perhaps knowing exactly what is below them.

It is a fitting image, for me, of the human condition—especially in relation to God and transcendence. Here we humans are, in the frail boat of our bodies, floating on the sea of life, perhaps obliviously paddling along in the sunshine, or perhaps noticing the bubbles and wondering where they’re coming from, or perhaps knowing for sure there is something looming under the material surface of life even though we cannot see it.

That this “something” in this image is ominous, perhaps even deadly, is also fitting. I long ago lost interest in a tame, meet-my-needs, buddy God. God is as likely to take your leg off—as with Ahab—as to pat you on the head. We are asked to believe, however, that the taking of our leg, if God does it, is for our long term good.

That’s tough to swallow—especially if the leg is, instead, a job or our health or someone we love. That’s why Either-Or Kierkegaard said the story of Abraham being told to sacrifice Isaac is so terrible and an example of the absurd. Despair and disbelief is much easier, he says, than believing that God both allows (commands?) suffering and yet also is good.

Who am I in the boat? I see myself as a bubble watcher. I am neither satisfied to float along on the surface, nor sure I know exactly what is suspended below. I am watching the bubbles that testify to something under there, but what exactly it is, I do not know. Some in the boat say Moby Dick is a myth, made up by yarn-spinning whalers too long in the sun. Others in the boat say they know all about Moby Dick and how to deal with him. I’m watching the bubbles.

And what to make of the mother-ship on the distant horizon? Human civilization? The church and safety? God has sunk more than a few of them. Or the Church—unsinkable but also invisible?

Here is one metaphor for God. Another is God as a lamb. We are asked to find room in our minds for both.