…Opening To…

Come, then, Lord my God, come and instruct my heart where and how to search for you, where and how to find you. Where shall I look for you, Lord? (St. Anselm)

…Listening In…

God named the light Day and the darkness Night. There was evening and there was morning: the first day. God said, “Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters to separate the waters from each other.” God made the dome and separated the waters under the dome from the waters above the dome. And it happened in that way. God named the dome Sky. There was evening and there was morning: the second day. (Genesis 1:5-8; context)

…Filling Up…

Of course, there’s no reason why God should care about a messy, little thing like me. To think God does is truly first-rate foolishness.

The prophet Isaiah doesn’t help matters. He says, “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing… To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One.”

There’s a tension in our scriptures — a twofold presentation — about how God relates to us that feeds the pulsing in my gut. The dual stories of creation in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis illustrate this tension. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…” says the first verse of Genesis. The narrative goes on to tell how God spoke creation into being. Creation was ordered: light separated from darkness, day from night, land from sea from sky. God orchestrated the emergence of life and proclaimed the creation “good” and, indeed, “very good.”

This ordering, this filling the void with matter and energy and life and light, speaks of the Cosmic Creator, whose voice and arm stretch into the vast expanse of eternity. This is the understanding of God that Bette Midler promotes when she sings: “God is watching us from a distance.” This is the understanding of God that the Enlightenment era Deists caricatured as a great Watchmaker, who set the gears running and then left well enough alone.

(Stay tuned for the second Creation story! To be continued tomorrow…)

…Praying For…

Dear God, you ordered creation, making all the things that are visible and invisible. Help me to participate in all the good, life-affirming things that your Creation has to offer. In Jesus Christ’s name I pray. Amen.

…Sending Out…

I leave this moment with you, God, comforted by the faith that your foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and hopeful that I might let your foolishness educate me.