​Sometimes it's hard to explain to people that, when you speak of God, you're not talking about a bully in the sky but rather a Life in which the universe unfolds. You're a pan-en-theist. Here are some metaphors that can help. All make sense from a process-relational perspective. Combine them if helpful and add your own:
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• Divine Tapestry.
• Cosmic Breathing
• Sacred Whole
• Cosmic Womb
• Cell without Boundaries
• Radiant Light
• Universal Consciousness
• Deep Listening
• Nurturing Parent
• Energy of Love
• Beauty within and beyond
• Cosmic Creativity

​Panentheism: Twelve Metaphors
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Lily is ten years old. When asked what God is like, she draws a picture of the universe with its stars and galaxies and puts within it the faint trace of a woman with a kind smile. "God is the universe and the smile," she says. Lily is a panentheist. She believes that everything is inside God even as God is more than everything. This is the literal meaning of panentheism: everything-in-God.

Some people believe in the universe but not the smile. They don't think there is anything loving or trustworthy at the heart of the universe. Of course, they may be very good people. There is no need to argue. But for panentheists there is something loving and trustworthy; there is a smile. Or, if you wish, an arc of justice and beauty, love and creativity. If you are a panentheist like Lily and you are trying to explain the smile to a friend, it helps to have metaphors. I offer twleve below. Choose among them, combine them as you wish, and, of course, create your own.

​None of the metaphors imply that God is all-powerful and none picture God as utterly external to the universe. They are, as it were, open and relational metaphors. All point to one or both of two intuitions. The first is that there is something more to the universe, something divine, and that universe is inside it like an embryo in a womb, or a cloud in the sky, or an organelle within a cell. The second is that this something is also within the universe itself like a cosmic breathing, or radiant light, or the energy of love. The metaphors below give concreteness to one or the other of these intuitions.

• Divine Tapestry: The universe is an intricate tapestry, with every thread symbolizing a living being or an aspect of existence. God is the weaver, crafting and interweaving threads to form a cosmic masterpiece with its own beauty, embodying what Whitehead refers to as the consequent nature of God.
• Cosmic Breathing: In this metaphor, the universe is considered a living organism with interconnected celestial bodies, ecosystems, and life forms. God is the Breath of Life, a force that infuses life into each entity and is also the living organism as a whole.
• Self-Organizing (Sacred) Whole: The universe is a self-organizing whole that naturally manifests inherent order and coherence. God is the guiding principle that allows the universe to self-organize and maintain balance, fostering interconnectedness, adaptation, and emergent properties. God is the life of the whole.
• Cosmic Womb: God is the womb of the universe, the nurturing space within which the universe unfolds. The universe is a continually evolving entity, growing within the divine embrace, with God as the creative source nourishing galaxies, stars, and life itself.
• Boundless Cell: God is a living cell encompassing the entirety of the universe. All entities in the universe have independent agency, allowing for diverse expressions and interactions. God possesses agency transcending the agency of individual entities within the universe, and they possess agency transcending God.
• Radiant Light: God is like the light of the sun emitting photons, but with each photon having agency of its own. The radiant light of God is omnipresent, reaching all corners of the universe, illuminating and nurturing all creation. Yet, each "photon" or entity within the universe has the capacity to act independently, contributing to the diversity and complexity of the cosmic masterpiece.
• Universal Consciousness: God is the consciousness of the universe, the mind, or sentience behind all existence. All entities in the universe are interconnected, like the neurons in a brain, contributing to a grand consciousness that is the universe. God, in this view, is the consciousness—an eternal presence that permeates all things and beings, allowing for interaction, growth, and evolution.
• Deep Listening: God is a listening presence, everywhere at once, who hears the voices and feels the feelings of each entity with sympathy and care. God then responds to each entity with a fresh possibility that the entity can actualize in the situation at hand.
• Nurturing Parent: God is like a loving parent, a mother or father, who shares in the suffering and joy of each and all, with tender care. God is a You, not an It, luring each and all toward possible well-being.
• Energy of Love: God is the energy of love that permeates the universe. Love is the fundamental force that connects all beings and sustains cosmic harmony. Just as energy flows through every aspect of existence, so does the energy of love flow through every corner of the universe. It is the unifying and transformative power that binds all entities together in a web of compassion and empathy.
• Beauty within and beyond: God is the Beauty within and beyond the beauty of the world. The universe is adorned with beauty, but God encompasses a beauty that transcends and permeates all creation, inviting awe and wonder in the presence of divine magnificence. God is found in the beauty of nature, the beauty of kindness and courage, the beauty of art and music, the beauty of each individual soul.
• Cosmic Creativity: God is the cosmic lure toward creativity and adventure, a call to novelty. The universe is imbued with the essence of exploration and innovation, and God's presence beckons beings to venture into new realms of possibility, inspiring them to discover and create new forms of order.

​       - Jay McDaniel

God as Nurturing Parent
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It can seem to some, for understandable reasons, that some of the metaphors offered above depersonalize God: that is, they diverge from the image of God as a person with whom people might have a dialogical relationship. From a process perspective, they do not, because in process theology we conceive 'persons' on the same analogies. A human being, is not a separate subject cut off from the world by the boundaries of the skin; a human being is instead a self-organizing whole in process, weaving influences from the world into experiential wholes, moment by moment. We humans, too, are weavers. And so are other animals with psyches.

It is important to add that persons, thus understood, can be imagined from two points of view: a spectator or third person perspective and a lived experience or first-person perspective. If we imagine another human being, or even ourselves, from a third-person perspective, we picture something 'out there' in the mind's eye: an object to be analyzed or understood. However, if we imagine that person has having a perspective of his or her own, we don't picture the person in this way. Instead, we place ourselves inside the person in a more empathic way and ask, what does it feel like to be inside your skin, looking out at the world. We envision the person as a thou, not an it.

​From a process perspective the same applies to God as the living whole of the universe. God has a life and a first-person perspective. God is a You not an it. We can say to God "I love you" or "I need you" or "I am sorry" or "Please forgive me" and someone is listening. The someone is the self-organizing whole. Thus, we can add a final metaphor for understanding God panentheistically, We can think of God on the analogy of a loving parent: the Abba of Jesus, for example. The divine tapestry, the womb of the universe, is Abba. Or, if we prefer, Amma. 

These various ways of imagining God are not mutually exclusive. You can appreciate them all, relative to need and circumstance. And while the metaphor of God as loving parent has a special kind of intimacy, it is not helpful in all circumstances, for people who have been overwhelmed with image of God as a bully in the sky, personal metaphors may be unacceptable or even repugnant. The value of a process approach is that it is open to all of the metaphors, plus more, keeping in mind that no metaphor does complete justice to the mystery in which we live and move and have our being, even as each contains wisdom worth appreciating.

- Jay McDaniel

​God as Living Cell

expanding the metaphor

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1. The Whole of the Universe: God is the entirety of the universe, much like a living cell encompasses its internal components. Just as a cell is the whole in which organelles reside and interact, God is the living whole of the universe, embracing and encompassing all entities within it.
2. Independent Agency: In a cell, organelles possess individual agency, distinct from one another. Similarly, all entities in the universe, regardless of their scale or complexity, possess independent agency. This agency allows for the diverse expressions and interactions found throughout creation.
3. Interconnectedness: Organelles within a cell are profoundly interconnected, with their activities intricately linked to one another. Similarly, entities across the universe are interconnected, influencing and impacting one another in ways that shape the unfolding of cosmic events.
4. Potential for Dysfunction: Organelles within a cell can malfunction, leading to imbalances or harm within the cell itself. Similarly, entities in the universe can exhibit disruptive behaviors, leading to disharmony and imbalance within the cosmic order.
5. Divine Agency: Just as a living cell as a whole possesses agency independent of its organelles, God's agency transcends the agency of individual entities within the universe. God's agency involves coordinating and harmonizing the diverse expressions of agency within creation, aiming for the highest possibilities of love, beauty, and order.
6. Boundless Presence: Unlike a living cell's separation from other cells through a membrane, God's presence permeates the entire universe without any separation or boundary. God is intimately intertwined with every aspect of existence, immanent in every particle and expansive in cosmic proportions.
7. Love and Empathy: While a living cell may not display love for its organelles, we can conceive of God as a loving presence, caring for all entities in the world with tender compassion. God can be envisioned as experiencing the joys and sufferings of all beings, offering solace and understanding.​ The value of this metaphor is that it invites contemplation of interconnectedness, independent agency, potential disharmony, and the loving presence of God, fostering a holistic perspective on the nature of existence. ​
   

Philosophical Panentheism

from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 

“Panentheism” is a constructed word composed of the English equivalents of the Greek terms “pan”, meaning all, “en”, meaning in, and “theism”, derived from the Greek ‘theos’ meaning God. Panentheism considers God and the world to be inter-related with the world being in God and God being in the world. While panentheism offers an increasingly popular alternative to classical theism, both panentheism and classical theistic systems affirm divine transcendence and immanence. But, classical theistic systems by prioritizing the difference between God and the world reject any influence by the world upon God while panentheism affirms the world’s influence upon God. On the other hand, while pantheism emphasizes God’s identity with the world, panentheism maintains the identity and significance of the non-divine. Anticipations of panentheistic understandings of God have occurred in both philosophical and theological writings throughout history (Hartshorne and Reese 1953; J. Cooper, 2006).

​However, a rich diversity of panentheistic understandings has developed in the past two centuries primarily in Christian traditions responding to scientific thought (Clayton and Peacocke 2004). Although panentheism affirms God’s presence in the world without losing the distinct identity of either God or the world, specific forms of panentheism, drawing from different sources, explain the nature of the relationship of God to the world in a variety of ways and come to different conclusions about the nature of the significance of the world for the identity of God.
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Panentheism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panentheism/.