Lauren F. Winner is an ordained Episcopal priest who teaches at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. She has written four books including Mudhouse Sabbath and Still. Visit her website at www.laurenwinner.net.

Although the Bible offers many images of God, modern-day Christians have latched on to only a few of them — rock, shepherd, and vine. We have all heard countless sermons on them. Winner decided to live with the metaphor "friendship with God" and see what would come of it. One result: this relationship drew her into the work God loves — the pursuit of justice and the practice of hospitality.

Another approach to seeing and sensing the Divine afresh is exploring "God clothes." She suggests: "God is our clothing. And, finally, God draws us into the act of clothing, by instructing us to clothe others." Winner shifts gears and looks at the implications of believing in a God who smells and enjoys the odor of incense. No wonder the early church father Origen wrote: "Put an altar of incense in your innermost heart. Be a sweet aroma of Christ."

The author covers more familiar ground in her Episcopal commentary on bread and wine. She gets back to her creative musing with images of God as a laboring woman, as a midwife, and as a breast-feeding mother. This section is followed by treatments of the laughter of God and God as a fiery lover. She quotes Nicola Slee: "No one image or model, however elusive or rich, can do more than offer glimpses and hints toward the divine."

Wearing God provides a playful and thoughtful excursion into fresh ways of seeing and savoring the Divine in the unfolding of our ordinary lives.