Metaphorically Speaking...

As writers, we are always looking for fresh metaphors to include in our writing, hoping to connect with people's imaginations and give them fresh insights into old truths.  As an English teacher, I have come across my fair share of dreadful metaphors: the sea waved and the beach was a sandy sandwich are two of my personal favourites. Despite the images portrayed by teacher-recruitment adverts, it is harder than you might think to spark Year 11's creative imagination on a Friday Period 6.

Last week I heard a song, where the use of metaphor stopped me in my tracks. It was from the film 'The Shack,' where the singer compared waiting for an answer to prayer to an aeroplane flying over a desert island, missing her waving her arms for help. It brought me to tears, because it was exactly how I felt about my sister and praying for her healing and it not ever coming.  It helped me identify and express something in my own heart, which I could then take before God, for Him to bring hope and healing afresh, in another layer. Later, the song writer concludes that the footprints on the beach of the desert island she was stranded on were not her own but God's all along.  I liked the way the song had mixed a brand-new metaphor with one that we are all so familiar with, but which will never become clichéd because it is so true and so comforting.

I amused myself, recently, by trying to come up with an original metaphor for how I am feeling about life at present.  What came to mind was one of those chicken breasts which is opened out and 'butterflied' in professional cookery programmes on TV.  The determined contestant takes one of those little wooden hammers with spikes on the end and proceeds to pummel the piece of meat until it is thin and tender. Somehow, this becomes a delicacy and brings out the best flavour.  I have been pummelled a lot of late, and I'm hoping that, eventually, my life will become a delicacy and not a lot of pulverized little pieces of meat flying around the kitchen.  Not the most beautiful of metaphors I admit; I'll try harder next time.  I also expressed to a friend an off-shoot of the famous, biblical, 'one-body-many-parts' metaphor: a great analogy, but, at this particular juncture, I described myself as a third arm or a sixth toe...not much use? Or a unique quirk? The jury is still out...metaphorically of course. Original metaphor-use is perhaps not a strong point in my writing! 

The Bible contains far more inspiring metaphors than any I could attempt. Psalm 18 alone talks of God being a rock and a fortress. The writer rejoices in how God has drawn him out of deep waters and set his feet in a spacious place.  It doesn't take great mental leaps to understand the essence of the writer's imagery here.  But through metaphor, he engages the reader, giving us some beautiful pictures of all that God can be to us when the going gets tough.  If he had simply said 'God you're strong and thanks for rescuing us,' I don't think it would have inspired the hearts of so many for thousands of years.

Ultimately, we all have to accept that even the most dazzling metaphor from the most inspired pen of the most talented writer can only ever scratch the surface, only ever begin to capture the tiniest essence of the difference God makes in our lives through Jesus. The earnest hope and prayer of any of us calling ourselves writers, is that our limping and inadequate metaphors will somehow point our readers to the One who walks us through our metaphorical wildernesses, darknesses and dreary valleys and who brings a life and hope that isn't metaphorical at all. 

Georgina Tennant is a secondary school English teacher in a Norfolk Comprehensive.  She is married, with two sons, aged 9 and 7 who keep her exceptionally busy! She feels intimidated by having to provide an author-biography, when her writing only extends, currently, to attempting to blog, writing the ‘Thought for the Week’ for the local paper occasionally, and having a poem published in a book from a National Poetry Competition! She feels a bit more like a real author now the ACW Lent Book is out and she has a piece in it! Her musings about life can be found on her blog: www.somepoemsbygeorgie.blogspot.co.uk