When I accidentally encountered this topic as an option for writing, I was amused and I chuckled outloud. Then, I moved on to another topic. I thought, and laughed some more about it under my breath. I reacted sort of like a kid who accidentally glimpsed a parent undressing, or walked in on parents having sex! Perish the thought! When you are a kid you have the most illogical thoughts about parents, but eventually you come to the realization that parents are people instead of gods. As such, they have penises and vaginas.

So, the irreverent thought of God having a penis, or a vagina, or breasts, or even maybe hairy armpits amused me. I laughed some more. My mind's eye, now on a roll, flashed through a portfolio of portly "Ruben-esk" god portraits like one might see in Renaissance exhibit, checking for penises. Nope, there were no penises in the paintings. Why?

What a juvenile thought to obsess over. Surely someone suggested this topic as a lark just to see who would touch it, and here I was not being able to put it down. I was hooked, fleeced, seduced by it's innocense and it's simultaneous irreverence. I focused on it like watching a horrid social faux pas, when someone's slip is showing or a man's fly is left open, when you know you shouldn't look, but you can't look away either. Then I laughed some more and remembered my trip to Florence, Italy, where I was so taken by the beauty of Michaelangelo's Young David, replete with penis. This sobered my thoughts.

It is really not such an absurd question after all. I began to think that my discomfort with it, like the discomfort of discovering a parent naked, was about me, my masculinity, not about the question itself, and not about God. The idea that God might have a penis would truly make Him real, masculine, male. It is an empowering thought. After all, the Bible says that he created men in His image. I've never been really clear as to whether or not that meant physically, emotionally, intellectually, or all of these. However, the thought of His having a penis surely brought home the idea of our being created physically in His image. What does it mean to be created in the image of God? The God of the Old Testament is a patriarchal God. The culture of the Old Testament portrays God as male, Father, masculine. Wouldn't that give him a penis?

Many of the stories of the Old Testament are about lineage, blood lines, fathers and sons, birthrights, fertility and births. Certainly,

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