The Celts often referred to God as the Wild Goose. I have often felt this to be an appealing image. the idea behind it was that there was an aspect of God which was always unexpected and wild in a good sense. We see this a lot in the prophets, especially for me in Isaiah 20. Here God commanded Isaiah to preach naked for three years. the first time that I really understood what was going on in this passage, I thought, "God, what were you thinking." It shook my sensibilities. Here was God commanding public nudity. Now, there are those who will try to explain it away in an attempt to make it meet our sense of decency, but I think that the passage is pretty clear.
How often we have tried to tame God, either making him into some type of Santa Clause, or other bearded old man. Sometimes, especially in our worship, we sentimentalize him, making him more like a Precious Moments figurine. We do not like a God with hard edges. We want a fuzzy, warm God.
However, I think that the Celts were comforted by this image. They say God as ever being able to surprise them by his goodness. They saw him as a creative force. They saw in this image a God that was beyond our completely figuring out.
God has revealed himself, but that revelation is limited to what we can take in. There are parts of God which will forever be beyond our comprehension.
