Creation

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Visio Divina “Creation” (4/18) Listening

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LISTENING

Read the text below, preferably aloud.  As you hear the word, “listen with the ear of your heart” for a word or short phrase that God has for you this day.

 Genesis 1: 1-5; 1: 31-2:3

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.  Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.  And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude.  And onthe seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

 

COMMENTS 

This illuminated text is the first illumination I was introduced to four years ago by Tim Ternes.  I remember all the detail that he showed us in this illumination.  It was majestic!  Further I remember standing in the parish parking lot gathered around the Easter Vigil fire as this reading was proclaimed by three readers.  On those evenings we would be surrounded by the stars, the moon and the gentle breeze.  A year ago, people in the southern area of the United States were facing the oil spill in the Gulf of America.  A different image of creation spread across the news media. 

“The seventh day” is the cluster of words that I am drawn to in this reading.  My natural inclination is to know the ending of a story without listening to all the in-between details.  However, time has sanded away some of my impatience and experience has taught me to look at the big picture.  What do I miss when I fail to be fully present to the grace of time and people who reveal the Spirit of God?  As I prepare for the seventh day during this Holy Week, my mantra will be  ‘Spirit of God, renew the face of the earth.’

  

This is what Irene Nowell writes about this Scripture passage:

This majestic opening to the Bible introduces us immediately to the power of God’s word.  Through an orderly procession of days God speaks, and primeval chaos is transformed into the created world we know.  First, time and space are created:  day and night, sky and earth, land and water.  Then God fills time and space:  sun, moon, and stars; fish and birds; animals and human beings.  Over and over God pronounces each created thing to be good, and finally at the end of the sixth day God looked at everything and saw it was “very good”.  Best of all is humankind, made in God’s own image.  God blesses us, entrusting to us a share in God’s creative power and responsiblity for the rest of creation.  Then God, who has spoken everything into being, rests.  God blesses the seventh day, a day for creator and creature to share in the enjoyment of each other and of the gift of life. 

–Barbara Sutton

© Creation, Donald Jackson with contribution by Christ Tomlin, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

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Visio Divina “Creation” Meditating (4/19)

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 Disordered chaos was already there as God began to create.  God did not create out of nothingness.  God began to order the days of chaos.  The Creator makes creation possible, not by a single act, but by the endless reenactment and reassertion of a soverign will over the recalcitrant “stuff” of chaos.  (Brueggemann).  All that exist is already present in the first panel of the illumination.  Though formless and void of order, matter explodes outward as if driven by a powerful force.  Loving God is active in creation, and it is good.  Imagine living in the white space before the first panel, the first day….or the white space after the last panel, the seventh day…how will God illuminate those days?  How will you author those days?  On the sixth day, male and female are created togetherto govern creation.  The equality of men and women is the taproot of the Bible…from the beginning.  And together we are in God’s image.  This liturgy of creation is that the world is willed by and seen by God to be “good”, that is lovely, beautiful and pleasing.  Consider these questions for your meditation today:  When have you noticed chaos transformed into wonder and awe through God’s creation?  How does this illuminated text ignite your imagination toward the care of the earth? Toward the reverence and dignity of ALL God’s people?  How does it compel you to renew the face of the earth?

© Creation, Donald Jackson with contribution by Christ Tomlin, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

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Visio Divina ‘Creation’ 4/20/11 Seeing

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This illumination stretches my imagination.  It is lush with metaphor and God’s divine plan that leads me quickly to the spiritual senses.  Our mission as Christian disciples and one we share with Jews, Muslims and Buddhist is to care for God’s stead.  Since we are made in the image and likeness of God who is love, I feel the weight of this responsibility as I meditate on the illumination.

 To be drawn into this illumination, requires an awareness of “the other”.  We are intimately connected. We see the dream of God and we notice the places in the world that need healing at the same time.  God spent “five days” creating a space in which humankind could become fully” actualized.”  And on that sixth day we see the snake/serpent in the bottom of the panel reminding us of other voices that lead us away from resting in God.  All of the human figures are facing away from the seventh panel, perhaps indicative of our tendency to busy and distracted.  (Rodney Bluml). 

Prior to coming to St. John’s University, I lived and worked in West Virginia for a few years.  Traveling throughout the state was an important part of my work.  I remember my trip to Southern West Virginia…it was to be a 5 hour drive.  So I brought an audiobook to listen to.  Within a half hour I was so distracted from the book by the beautiful mountains and streams that I turned the book off.  The beautiful environment drew me in and I developed a very special relationship with them.  They actually ministered to me in the busyness of my work.  I would fix my gaze on those early spring buds, which were always fuzzy at first, and then notice full blossoms, and inebriating aromas.  Then there were the bees and the honey.  Beekeepers were abundant. 

Mountains, hills and trees pointed to heaven.   And then I fell in love with the people and their mountain ruggedness, which was wild and wonderful!  The people were warm, genuine, honest and strong.  They are committed to their families and made stronger by their extended families, who cross county and state borders and bloodlines to help each other. Families run as deep as the roots of the forests that cover hills.  It humbles me to reflect upon the forces that shaped them over time.  They so greatly exceed our own power.  It humbles me also to reflect on our impact on them—and our careless extraction of natural resources. 

Like our families, the roots of the trees of our forests also depend on extended support.  Healthy trees send their roots sideways.  In the face of wind, rain and ice, a forest prevails because of its interwoven system.  The roots live together so intimately that the forest functions as one organism.  I imagine there is a thread of gold that weaves together the root system.  Those roots systems of the trees reflect my own need for interconnectedness and a broad network that weaves us together.  It is what the world needs for health and well-being of us all.  I am challenged to create an environment that reflects the habits of Christ and that wellness and health might be possible for all!

I will be back tomorrow with more visio divina….my mind is racing and my thoughts plentiful!  I have class in 30 minutes!!! 

Barbara Sutton

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Visio Divina, ‘Creation” More Seeing, 4/21/11

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 Let’s return to God’s word for the purpose of “hearing and seeing” Christ in the text.  Fix your gaze on the illumination once again.  Ask God to open  the eyes of your heart and enable you to see what God wants you to see.  Be open to images, thoughts, impressions, and feelings that come into your awareness.

 The snow has melted again here in Minnesota!  The scars of winter made visible again.  I am continuing visio divina on the Creation illumination this morning.  As I gaze again on this illumination, at first I think it is the big picture of creation.  And then I imagine the unfolding of the accordion panels—what else is to be revealed? What are the snapshots and stories behind these seven panels?  I notice in the first panel, amidst the chaos, a gold thread perfectly positioned.  It seems unflappable.  God breathes life into this chaos and orders the days.  What untapped potential are you holding onto?  How would the world be different if this potential were released?  How would it affect your relationship with God?

Do you see the gold hinges that seem to hold the panels together?  I examine my conscience to see if my days hinge on God’s Word or all the other words that surround me; or the words I use to distance others from me.  As these hinges open the doors to the deep mystery of God, I also see our vulnerabilities and limitations.  Our faith prompts us to understand that we are not different from our neighbor but part of a frail human condition whose best hope for wholeness is in the recognition of our interdependence with other and with our natural, social and cultural environment.  Intrinsic to our Christian faith is respect for the human person, whether that person be ourself or another.  God created humankind in and out of love.  God so loved the world that God sent Christ to live, suffer, die and rise for our salvation.  The very Spirit of God resides in the depths of each human person.  God the Creator, called us into being; God the Son gave his life to save ours; and God the Spirit sustains us in our daily living.  The dignity of human persons is not determined by what they have but because they are children of God.  The Gospels remind us that Jesus, by example and word, reached out to the least favored.  He went so far as to announce that service to them is service to God. 

And I have been avoiding the seventh day, fully gold; the Sabbath day is full of God.  If your Sabbath reflects this panel of gold….I want you to press LIKE on Facebook.  A challenge facing all of us is to live life reflectively, to develop a contemplative stance as we journey through life. 

To end this reflection, I draw on a pastoral letter, A Church That Heals.(Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston) We have to stop running through life but rather pause and stop and enjoy.  We need to take time to be touched by ordinary moments:  a gentle snow fall, the beauty of a sunset, the light in the eyes of a child, the smile on the face of a friend, the tear in the eye of the one who is hurting and the voice of God within.

We live in a world and environment where constant activity is the norm.  Not only must we always be busy, but we must be busy about many things at the same time.  Not only are computers expected o “multi-task” but so are people.  Every minute of every day is to be filled with activity.  We run from one event to the next.  Physically we arrive at a new place before our minds and hearts are able to let go of what we were doing or where we were.  Such a lifestyle is unhealthy; replacing quality for quantity.  We pass through life and events and do not allow ourselves to experience deeply or be touched by people and happenings.  The fruit of such living is frustration, anxiety, anger, depression and a multitude of physical and mental ills.  It will take time to make reflectivity a part of our lifestyle.  We need to take time to create the habit of contemplative living.  We need the discipline of going apart, so that we might be a part of all around us and know that we live in the presence of God.  It will lead to healthier people making greater contributions to the world.  Deeper values will emerge in human living.  Human interaction will be wholesome and rewarding. 

Go for the GOLD!

 

Blessings on your day!  Barbara Sutton

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Visio divina for 11/27/11 – “Creation” – Day 1 (Listening)

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LISTENING

Read the text below, preferably aloud.  As you hear the word, “listen with the ear of your heart” for a word or short phrase that God has for you this day.

Genesis 1: 1-5; 1: 31-2:3

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.  Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.  And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude.  And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.  So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

 

COMMENTS 

Containing the first words of the Bible, Genesis 1 is one of the better known passages of Scripture. But as I sit with it this morning, I wonder if it is not one of the least understood. Simple as it may seem on the surface (“God created the world in six days in this order, saw it was good as he went, and rested.”) it is actually filled with meaning, complexities, and implications.

Theologians debate the words above in miniscule detail. How should the first 3 verses be tied together grammatically?  Did the Israelites believe that God created the world out of nothing, or that God simply imposed order on preexisting chaos? What other creation stories from the ancient world influenced this one?

These are good questions, but I’m not sure they’re the most pressing ones. With our modern world’s 3 million year old Lucy and an even older Big Bang, can a few surviving paragraphs from 6,000 B.C. really hope to compete?

The creation story is often called a myth. The Merriam-Webster’s first definition of “myth” is not, as some might think, “some old story that’s not actually true.” That’s closer to the third definition. The first is the most important: “a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon”.

Genesis 1 makes powerful statements that unfold a “world view”, but we must have the eyes to see them. We have to look at the text as the ancient Israelites did, not just as an ancient story competing for its place on the school curriculum, but rather as the incredible, almost unspeakable idea that the all-powerful God made the world what it is.

The Israelites saw this story as the beginning. It wouldn’t really matter what came before, whether it be absolutely nothing, a formless chaos, or (I suspect) billions of years of planetary evolution. What mattered was that God created it, God had a purpose for it, and (read on into Genesis) that very same God was with them.

-Taylor Morgan

© Creation, Donald Jackson with contribution by Christ Tomlin, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

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Visio divina for 11/28/11 – “Creation” – Day 2 (Meditating)

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MEDITATING

Ruminate on the word you were drawn to in yesterday’s scripture passage (Genesis 1:1-5, 31 – 2:3). What does the word or phrase you have chosen mean to you today?

COMMENTS

Yesterday the word that stuck out to me was “everything”. God saw that everything he had made was good. To be honest, this doesn’t seem to be a description of our current world. I want to respond: “Maybe everything was good at first, but now some things are good, and some things are not good.” And as I spend time meditating on this word, I find my thoughts turning towards the “not good” in the world.

Isn’t it an easy case to make that the world is imperfect? Wars, famine, death, disease, political bickering, and poverty — the list goes on. How is it that God would look on all this and say “It is good.”

God wouldn’t. And a simple answer might be to say that the world was good, but that now it’s fallen off of that path. Though human greed, selfishness, or sin, we’ve steered the planet off of that path. 

Yet…I find myself not being satisfied with that answer. I think it’s true, but something about my reflection yesterday is sticking in my mind. The point I ended on was that the Jewish people saw the powerful creator of the universe as one and the same with their God. God continued to be active in their lives; God continued to create.

I think the element my simple answer is missing is that God is still active in the world today. True, we’ve messed things up pretty bad, and you can read about the results on any front page paper. But God does not simply wash his hands of the whole matter. 

At the beginning of this meditation,  I thought of things as split between the “good” and the “not good”. Maybe that doesn’t do God’s continual role as creator justice. Perhaps a better way of looking at things is the “already good” and the “not yet good”. As Christians, I believe we are called to transform the world. For me, this word (“everything”) challenges me with the call to look beyond the pain and suffering of the world and see where God’s creation / love can be shared.

What word stuck out to you?

-Taylor Morgan

© Creation, Donald Jackson with contribution by Chris Tomlin, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

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Visio divina for 11/29/11 – “Creation” – Day 3 (Seeing)

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SEEING

Return to God’s word for the purpose of “hearing and seeing” Christ in the text. Fix your gaze on the illumination. Ask God to open the eyes of your heart and enable you to see what God wants you to see.

COMMENTS

Yesteday my own meditation led me to consider how God’s act of creation might still live on in our hectic, troubled world. Today as I sit with this illumination, I find myself thinking along the same lines.

In the image there are seven vertical panels, each representing a day of creation. To me it all looks chaotic — a jumble of images, and there is no clear frame or border…creation is not so “clean and neat” as it seems when I read it in a couple of short pargraphs. 

In the ancient world water was a symbol for chaos — for things uncontrolled, not understandable, and even deadly. But on the second day God separates the waters of the world and defines their limits. God is not just drawing a border for the oceans of the world;  God is exercising control over the chaos of the world. Yes there are things in the world that are hard to understand, and yes it can be chaotic and even deadly, but God is more powerful than all of that. This is God’s world, and here is God coming down in a dramatic display of awesome, earthshaking power to reign in that chaos! 

Such tremendous power, and yet to God it is as simple as saying, “Let there be…”. 

Here in this illumination, I think some of this meaning that can so easily be read over is shown. The swirling waters in the second day are truly chaotic. As the days go on, the borders above and below them get gradually more well defined. Order is being established as God moves creation towards its fulfillment, and slowly, surely, chaos is subdued. In the end, on the seventh day: Peace. Sabbath. Fulfillment.

Yesterday I asked myself: Am I looking for ways to bring about God’s love, to help bring the world in line with God’s plan? Here I see a sign of hope. Just as God slowly subdued the chaos of the world during its creation, so too may God help us transform it even today.

Taylor Morgan

© Creation, Donald Jackson with contribution by Chris Tomlin, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

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Visio divina for 11/30/11 – “Creation” – Day 4 (Seeing cont.)

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SEEING

Return to God’s word for the purpose of “hearing and seeing” Christ in the text. Fix your gaze on the illumination. Ask God to open the eyes of your heart and enable you to see what God wants you to see.

COMMENTS

Yesterday I focused on chaos: of the world at the beginning of time, and of our world today. I was drawn by how the illumination showed the chaos becoming gradually more and more ordered as God took control, eventually ending in the 7th day of rest and fulfillment.

But questions about these ideas sat with me throughout the day. Do I trust that God can control the chaos of the everyday? Do I have hope that, with God still at the wheel, we are headed towards a place of fulfillment and not death?

I think that trusting and hoping are difficult because so much in our lives pushes us the other way. As we grow up our lives become more busy and more crazy, not less. We become more and more aware of death and suffering as we watch loved ones struggle, and every other news story takes the angle that such-and-such latest development is a sign of the deteriorating conditions.

Maybe that’s precisely why God’s message of hope is so important, and why it is embedded into the story of creation itself. Fundamental to the way God has set things up is the idea that fulfillment is coming, despite how things might seem now. The narrative of the news reports (and the stories of our day-to-day lives) might be all about chaos, but God’s story, the one found in God’s word, is not.

In fact, that’s why I am praying with “Creation” and Genesis 1 this first week of Advent. It tells the story that from the very beginning, God has been steering the world towards fulfillment. And as a Christian, I believe the absolute most important step along the way is the one we’re now preparing to celebrate: Christmas, Christ’s coming.

In this image my eye is drawn from left to right, through chaos, towards the fulfillment of the gold colored Sabbath. To me it represents not only the seventh day of creation, but God’s plan for the universe. That’s where everything is headed. In our own lives, with God’s help, we can move towards God’s plan of fulfillment.

Do we have the eyes to see God’s promise of fulfillment? Are our eyes on the goal?

Taylor Morgan

© Creation, Donald Jackson with contribution by Chris Tomlin, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

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Visio Divina for 12/1/11 – “Creation” – Day 5 (Praying)

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PRAYING

Pray to God, allowing for the transformation of your being and feelings. Give to God what you have found in your heart.

COMMENTS

Lord God, I believe that long ago you established the foundations of the earth, and made the world what it is. Out of love you provided humanity with life. Creator of the world and of my life — thank you for the gift of creation.  

You designed the world to be good. Help me to see your plan for all creation and for my life. Help me also to see where things are not as they should be, and give me courage to nurture those things back into line with your will.  

Help all of us, Lord, to see the world as you see it.

As we prepare for Advent, bring to our minds and hearts the saving wonder of your Son. Help us to draw nearer to him, and to follow his lead in service and love for the world and those in it.

I ask all this through Christ, your Son. Amen.

Taylor Morgan

© Creation, Donald Jackson with contribution by Chris Tomlin, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

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Visio divina for 12/2/11 – “Creation” – Day 6 (Contemplating)

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CONTEMPLATING

Notice the transforming presence of God within you. Let go of words and images. Surrender all that is stirring, even if only briefly, and rest for a few minutes in God’s embrace.

COMMENTS

There is a danger in trying too hard to explain “contemplation”. In some ways, the more words we use, the more ideas we convey, the further we move people away from true contemplation — a letting go of words and thoughts, and a restful awareness of God’s presence. I will, however, share why this part of visio divina is so important to me.

 

It is often hard for me to move into a place of contemplation, especially after being stirred by the Holy Spirit in the earlier parts of prayer. By the time I am at contemplation, I have spent time listening to Scripture, considering how it called out to me spiritually, using an image to gain new perspective and to listen even closer to what the Spirit might be whispering, and forming all of these experiences into a dialogue with God. It can seem like such a step backwards to let go of all that.

But I’ve also learned that it’s an important step, and that it’s not really backwards. I believe a popular phrase goes, “We’re only human.” Here I don’t offer it as an excuse, but as an awareness — we are human, God is God, and sometimes it’s important to remember that.

Sometimes I catch myself subconsciously putting myself above God. I feel like the lieutenant on the field in the heat of battle, radioing back to a slow-to-respond headquarters for support. “If they only understood what was going on out here, they’d send me some help!” My tendency is to sometimes think that I can “figure prayer out”…that if I really apply myself, if I can pray really hard, I’ll make God understand what it’s like down here, and then maybe I’ll get a response.

Contemplation offers me the reminder to trust in God’s side of the prayer, to believe that God does not sit passively by when I pray, but rather is very much present with me. It helps me move beyond limited analogies (like the lieutenant/headquarters one), and realize that God is unlike anyone else I have ever known.

God is here, working to transform my heart and my life, and God loves me more than I could ever love. That’s worth taking time to ponder.

Taylor Morgan

© Creation, Donald Jackson with contribution by Chris Tomlin, 2003. The Saint John’s Bible, Order of Saint Benedict, Collegeville, Minnesota.  Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition, © 1993, 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.