During World War 2, the British soldiers arming the anti-aircraft guns had a dilemma. They had to be able to distinguish German planes from British plans quickly, and needless to say, accurately. So they developed a system called GISS, which stands for General Impression, Size and Shape. Not surprisingly, the planes from the different sides were built differently and since bombers and fighters serve different purposes, they looked different. At first glance they may seem similar, but if you trained your first glance to be discriminating you could tell the differences with just a glance.
Bird watchers employ the same skill set, particularly in relation to soaring birds. Hawk watchers know to look at the wings of soaring birds to tell them apart. If the silhouette of the soaring bird involves long wings with spread feathers at the tip, then, in this area, it is either a vulture or an eagle. The most common vulture here is the Turkey Vulture. It gives itself away by soaring with its wings in slightly upturned position called a dihedral. No other bird soars this way, so the dihedral is diagnostic.
One problem with soaring birds is the difficulty of determining the size of the bird. With nothing but sky, it is impossible to know how far away a bird is, leaving no way to determine the relative size. But the proportion of the parts of the bird will always remain constant within a species. Thus when a hawk is seen soaring, the length and shape of the wings and the tail relative to the overall size of the bird is sufficient to identify at least the family of the bird. Buteos, like Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks, have rounded, broad wings and short tails. Accipiters, like Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks, have long rounded wings and long tails. If you see a hawk-like bird with pointed wings, think falcon.
This sort of quick sorting based on first impressions is a practice that helps a person take in the big picture. Rather than going first to the particulars that make a bird unique and trying to identify from details, it is an easier and superior practice to start with the big picture and test assumptions from that perspective as you narrow the identification from the general down to the specific.
Too often, the temptation is to do this backwards, to go from the specific to the general, sometimes attempting to make all the pieces fit to make the identification we want to see. In church circles this is called proof-texting. It is tempting once one holds a doctrine that feels comfortable to find all the various verses in the Bible that appear to support that position. I say “appear to support” because sometimes they have to be taken out of context. Consider how John 3:16 is so often used to threaten condemnation if one doesn't believe correctly. Instead of seeing the love of God that begins the verse, some folks would rather emphasize the “whomever shall believe” meaning that it is not everyone, so you better start believing in Jesus if you want to be saved. But if you were to take a General Impression, Size and Shape approach to the verse and look at it in context, you would see that the very next verse makes it clear that Jesus came not to condemn the world but to save it! In fact, taken together these verse are a good beginning for a case for universal salvation.
Unfortunately, this sort of cherry-picking seems to have become an epidemic in recent years. Take climate change as an example. The overwhelming weight of scientific findings show that the earth is warming and with that will come drastic climatic changes that could have dire impact on all of us. But the recent political debate on the issue in our country has those who oppose regulations proposed to slow the increase in greenhouse gases denying the science instead of debating policy. The tactic is to find one or two scientific reports that raise doubts about climate change and claim that that debunks it. This sort of argument is like saying that there is no hunger in the world because some of us have more food than we can eat. Pulling back to see the big picture is vital when we have become so lost in details that we can no longer imagine any other possibilities.
Consider the story of the Flood. How do we hear that story? Is it a story about God punishing the world or saving the world? A bit of important information to consider before you answer is that this was not the only story of a devastating global flood being told at the time. Remember that in Mesopotamia flooding was common. In fact, flooding was what made the Fertile Crescent so fertile. Any particularly large flood would be devastating to all that the local people knew to exist and would seem quite literally like the end of the world. It would be natural to tell stories in order to remember the events and to make sense of them. All of these tales involved an element of judgment, but the one that the Hebrew people told also contained a promise and an element of hope. Think about it for a minute, is the moral of the story usually at the beginning or the end? This story may begin with the judgment of God, but it ends in covenant. The dove and the rainbow remain today as powerful images of peace exactly because this story ends with a covenant between God and all of creation which encourages the people to believe that even if we don't always deserve it, God is committed to blessing us.
Granted, natural disasters continue to occur, and it doesn't help that we refer to them as “acts of God.” So it is tempting to fall into the trap of believing that God is still in the punishment business. But we know that in natural disasters the innocent suffer. Don't you think that if God were to send judgment that God would be more capable of punishing those who really deserve it? No, the GISS of God is the covenant of blessing, not the enforcement of consequences for broken contracts.
But what if God is attempting to get our attention through nature? We certainly sense that when we behold the wonder of the natural world with awe. Could it be that even in natural disasters God is speaking? Consider what our response is to disaster. When our fellow human beings suffer, we feel it and we respond as we are able. Disasters bring out our compassion. Isn't that at the heart of the story of the rainbow covenant? In the wake of disaster we share the heart of God in caring for those who suffer and desiring to restore peace and well-being. Perhaps God does speak to us even in the suffering of creation, calling us to compassion. And in our day when we see the very earth itself suffering, is not God shouting?
When I started considering using GISS as metaphor for this message, the fact that it could also stand for the words of the United Church of Christ advertising campaign, God is still speaking was not lost on me. When we step back to discern the big picture of what God is about the one thing that we should clearly discern is that God is not absent. The big picture story about the nature of God is that God is very much involved in the human story. The God of creation, who is responsible for this ever expanding universe and all of its magnificent marvel, this God who is present even at the most distant star, is also intimately concerned with every facet, every nook and cranny of it all. God is as close as the next breath that you take. That is the General Impression, Size and Shape of this God who is very much still speaking.
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