One of my favorite symbols for God is the fountain.  I wrote about this in my book, The Inn of God’s Forgiveness:

This clear fountain became for me a symbol of God: a symbol of the mysterious, unceasing source of love and joy and energy.  If I could choose one symbol to stand for my church, it would not be a cross, but a fountain.

Superficially, a fountain is a pleasant sensual experience.  You see the dancing sunlight on the water, and you hear the soothing splashing of the water, and the laughter of children and the singing of birds around the water, and you smell the cool water falling through the hot air, and you can take off your shoes and feel the water washing the weariness from your feet.  But at a deeper level, a fountain is a powerful symbol.  It’s so inexplicable—and so wasteful!  It just throws water up into the air.  It doesn’t irrigate crops, doesn’t turn a turbine, doesn’t move commerce down the canal.  It just gives itself, whether anyone is there to receive it or not.

This is my song “Clear Fountain.”

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“Clear Fountain” is from my album As a Deer Longs; I’m singing and playing all the instruments, but the angelic background vocals are provided by Kelly Autrey-Webber, my wife.  I couldn’t think of a suitable fountain nearby to film for the visual background, but the little river near my home is just as good—better, in some ways, because it’s not human-made.

Do you have a symbol for God that is particularly meaningful to you?  Please tell me about it below.