The Beginning Began: Creation GP Response

 

This is my work, my response, to the lesson.  In both words and pictures.  Mostly photos I took on our property after hearing the lesson.

So we wonder - what is your favorite day?

I love the firmament day.  I love the storytelling wondering of the ancients - that what is above is connected to what is below. We repeat a half truth that everyone in the ancient world thought the world was flat.  Yet the metaphors and wonderings of even the poets and prophets of Judeo-Christian scriptures suggest the fragility of that assertion.  If you get a broad enough perspective, you can see the roundness of the earth.  And the words here - dome - suggest that people saw the roundness of above matching what is below.  And then sky and sea are connected in the cycle of life.  We are a part of that cycle too - water that flows in our tears could be the same as that that washed past Jesus' body.  Lastly I also have a memory - from a day flying between Dallas, Texas, and San Juan, Puerto Rico.  I looked out of the plane and could not tell sky from sea.  Same color, same refraction of light meeting my eyes. It is the same but there is also difference, and rather than dwelling in a planet of swirling gas or liquid, these were brought into their own.

What day is my least favorite - none of them.  Which one am I not so good at: the 7th.  Sabbath.  Resting, holding still.  There was a month or so in early summer where I had developed a much better habit of being still.  Forced by the duty to the well being of all, I learned to do what so often alludes me.  Resting properly, taking my time.  Now that many things are back open and I am less paniced about shopping in a ventilated store with my mask and some hand sanitizer - I am not sitting as still.  I am not very good at the 7th day, and I need to be better.  So my self judgement creates a bit of a cycle of meh about sabbath.  

Where am I in this story?  I marvel at the ways that the sacred storytelling and the science storytelling match, somewhat.  There is a beauty to that - reminding me of our being made in God's image.  That we could even begin to touch the creativity and logic of the One Lord God of the Universe - is stunning.  If you haven't ever seen it, One of my favorite lessons of the Godly Play cousin Catechesis of the Good Shepherd is called something related to the engish word fettuccine.  In the lesson is a long long long ribbon (the noodle part) that is 7 colors and for the first 6 days of creation each grain of ribbon is made to represent millions of years, approximating what we believe we know about the timeline of creation.  The ribbon is supposed to stretch from the altar to the classroom.  In these two stories we have two ways of telling a story about who we are and where we came from, and that it is all in some sort of order, and also chaos, and it is both beyond our imagining and tangible to our understanding.  I hope you have a chance to see that lesson someday.  If you think these two areas are opposed - then please give a listen to this On Being episode with two Jesuit scientists.   And if you are looking for some regular places to intersect the sciency brain with the mysteries of Christian faith then check out the Liturgists podcast (it isn't about worship patterns).

I wonder how you could listen to this lesson and respond - either by art or writing or contemplation or research.  This is my response, a little bit of writing, a little bit of photography.

And some water, not from my yard.