Theme 1 - The Movement of Creation = God's Activity in the Unfolding of the
Universe
I would like to begin with a quote from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the great
Jesuit anthropologist and mystic’s work THE DIVINE MILIEU:
All around us, to right and left, in front and behind, above and
below, we have only to go a little beyond the frontier of sensible
appearances in order to see the divine welling up and showing through.
But it is not only close to us, in front of us, that the divine presence has
revealed itself. It has sprung up universally; and we find ourselves so
surrounded and transfixed by it, that there is no room left to fall down
and adore it, even within ourselves.
By means of all created things, without exception, the divine
assails us, penetrates us, and molds us.
We imagined it as distant
and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning
layers.... The world, this palpable world, which we were wont to treat
with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard
places with no sacred associations for us, is in truth a holy place, and
we did not know it.
But what is this world of created things that Chardin speaks of, that our
tradition's sacred scripture speaks of from beginning to end? GENESIS
2:1-4 Thus heaven and earth were completed with all their array. On
the seventh day God completed the work he had been doing. He
reseted on the seventh day after all the work he had been doing. God
blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day he had
rested after all his work of creating. = AND REVELATION 22:3-5 "And
there shall be no more curse—but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall
be in it; and His servants shall serve Him—and they shall see His face; and
His name shall in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and
they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them
light—and they shall reign forever and ever!"
And what is it that we are to
see, feel, experience in this world of created things? St. Ignatius, and the
spirituality that bears his name, answers this most clearly in the phrase
"FINDING GOD IN ALL THINGS". So...we are called to look clearly and
directly at the reality that is before us, directly in front of us, created for us
and before us. Let us examine for a moment the nature of nature itself and
see what it can present to us about the God who dwells beyond, behind, and
within.
Chardin was a paleontologist and a geologist...a study-er of the Earth, of
creation, of the creative movement of the Universe from our small vantage
point. And, he was a Jesuit steeped in Ignatian Spirituality. He studied the
flow of creation and evolution from an Ignatian viewpoint. He took as his
presupposition Finding God In All Things. He took seriously the question
what does the Earth and its natural processes tell us.
He examined this
from an ultimate sense....What does this say about the Creator behind this
creation? What he found was order, and pattern, and evolution/growth. For
chaos only breeds more chaos. It does not breed pattern and form and
regularity and precision and evolution. Randomness will break apart as
much as it integrates and tear asunder as much as it holds together, so that
nothing will be stable and permanent enough to grow and develop and
evolve. But that is not our Universe. Pattern and Order and Law and Form
are found as well as Beauty that inspires wonder and awe in the human
soul.
Ignatian Spirituality calls us to a 3 point movement:
1. be attentive to reality
2. reverence (that is, appreciate) what you see and hear and feel in all its
particulars
3. and then one will find Devotion (what Ignatius called consolation), the
singular way in which God works in the World in particular situations
I want to focus this morning on a key aspect of reality, our reality, that is often
right before us, which is integral to the creation and growth of the universe, of
ourselves, and is often overlooked by us. This aspect of reality is there from
the very beginning...embedded in Genesis from the start. In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form
and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of
God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said “Let there
be light” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.
Creation and growth has a dormant, chaotic darkness out of which it stems
and from which new creation and growth occur. Let's call this Holy
Darkness, for it is the darkness out of which God creates, brings order and
goodness out of Chaos and the Formless Void. Let us attend to nature
here. Spend as much time in one's yard as a high school teacher who is off
in the summers does, and one will experience the fruits of creation. Every
summer I am amazed by the rich growth that occurs in my yard from early
February thru early June. My yard is teaming with life and growth and
development. I have transplanted two cedar tree sprouts that sprung forth
as volunteers in my yard, hacked back numerous volunteer trees, bushes
and ivy runners, and fought the never-ending battles with invasive ivy,
weeds, and moss (roof and ground moss, to be precise). But where were
these the winter break before, when I had two weeks off to nip them in the
bud, to get at the root of this problem (to be intentionally puny)? They were
naught to be seen. They resided dormant, below the surface, in the holy
darkness of God's creative Nature.
Nature's growth occurs in process, and part of that process is dormancy in
darkness. The Himalayas and the Alps and the Rockies did not just appear
on this Earth. They arose over time from a process that occurred deep
within the Earth...unseen, unnoticed, predictable in its development from the
perspective of the end result. Hindsight is always 20/20! We see this
spoken of in the first GENESIS account. A pattern is clear here that growth
and development arise from a period of dark dormancy and
below-the-surface movement that goes undetected. Seeds only germinate
and grow when placed for periods of time in darkness and restriction. Seeds
don't sprout on our freshly painted window sill. No, they need to be pushed
deep in darkened soil, left alone to await the change that will draw them forth
to newness and life above the darkness. The creative force of the Universe
uses cool darkness to prepare the new seed for its growth and
development.
Jesus says in Marks Gospel: “The Kingdom of God is as if a man should
scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day,
and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how.
What do we know of our own development? Anyone who has carried a child
knows this intimately. Any father knows this from the wonder of observing
the growth and development of their child in the darkness of the mother's
womb. We come to be in the darkness and anonymity of the womb of our
mothers. Our lives begin in cramped darkness, unknown to our mother for
weeks and weeks. We cannot come to be without this nurturing darkness.
We cannot come to be without the waiting of time...9 long months of silent
growth.
In Jeremiah we read: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and
before you were born I consecrated you”
Here we find two of the key images of the Advent Season - the groaning of
creation and the waiting anticipation of Mary for the birth of Jesus.
1. Creation is groaning for wholeness, from Chaos to Completion. It yearns
to heal its broken nature to fullness of purpose and form. Evolution is
evolving, and one cannot have the movement of evolving without the goal of
that evolution...completeness, wholeness, fruition, fullness. And this starts
in darkness and stillness. It stems from chaos and disorder, calling forth
that which will be from dis-order to order, from purposelessness to purposeful
being.
2. Anticipation for the birth of new life, from barrenness to generativity. Mary
yearns for the new life of her unborn child. She waits as this growth occurs
over time, waiting, anticipating, experiencing being in suspense with a future
undetermined. She has no idea what this new life will call her to, demand of
her, pierce her soul with. Every newly expectant parent knows this
experience...none better than the one carrying the new life. Newness and
change are coming. What will this be like, entail, call forth in us? We do
not know. We only know that it will. I remember when I was 38 years old
and expecting my first child with my wife Ellyn.
I had lived 38 years as a
person unto myself. Marriage? Yes. Commitment? Yes. To another fully
developed adult.
This was different. This was commitment to an
unknown, to another not fully developed. It was a commitment to an unseen
future, a not yet developed being, a changed way of life that I knew not what
it would call me to?
These two themes are woven into the very fabric of the Universe. In
Ignatian Spirituality terms, they are God's WAY OF PROCEEDING.
Waiting! This is how God operates in the Universe. God calls forth Order
and Wholeness and Fruitfulness from Chaos and Darkness and Disorder.
And this occurs through periods of waiting. God also calls us to new life, to
a transformed way of being, to a greater state of being through a period of
darkness and anticipation and uncertainty.
HANDOUTS
1. Pope Francis in "the Joy of the Gospel (No. 276)"
It is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always springs to
life and sooner or later produces fruit. On razed land life breaks through,
stubbornly yet invincibly. However dark things are, goodness always
re-emerges and spreads. Each day in our world beauty is born anew, it
rises transformed through the storms of history. Values always tend to
reappear under new guises, and human beings have arisen time after time
from situations that doom.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
A. Where is the "darkness of my life"? Where in my life can I identify with
being a hard seed in cold dark ground, waiting for new life?
B. Where in my life has new life and fruit sprung up from darkness,
transformed through storms in my life?
C. What does it mean to believe in a God who brings order out of Chaos,
new life from a barren void, and order/potential/growth from nothingness?
D. Where in my world is God operating unseen, in stillness and darkness, for
a greater purpose? What is God calling me to now, in the midst of this
insight?
E. How can I more fully Find God in All Things?
2. Pregnant Waiting: Reflections on Advent
From new mother and professor Monica Coleman. November 27, 2012
"In both pregnancy and the spiritual life, waiting can be tiring, frustrating, and
worrisome."
The church year begins with a pregnant woman. Christian traditions have
called her theotokos. Bearer of God. Mother of God.
Most images of the theotokos show Mary in red or blue cloth, halo-ed and
cradling a baby Jesus. But that's not Advent. Advent is not about Mary the
mother; it's about Mary, the pregnant woman. Advent is about the journey to
the birth of Jesus.
Advent is about pregnancy, and pregnancy is about waiting.
Pregnant women wait
Some women wait for the first three months to pass before they tell anyone
they are pregnant. Waiting to get past the time when miscarriage is more
likely. Waiting to share the good news. Waiting to feel like the baby is safe.
Waiting to exhale.
Pregnant women wait for morning sickness to end.
Pregnant women wait to feel the first kick.
Pregnant women wait for the baby to be born.
Waiting nine months—actually nine and a half months for a full term of
thirty-eight weeks.
I spent most of this last calendar year as a pregnant woman, so I spent most
of this year waiting. There are no halos. It's not that glamorous.
Pregnant waiting is worrisome and frustrating. I first waited to be sure I
stayed pregnant. I prayed not to see the blood that indicates possible
miscarriage. I waited for the test results that would tell me the odds of genetic
diseases, and whether or not I needed even more tests. I waited weeks for
the nausea to end. Then I waited for a time when I would not feel so tired. I
waited for the first kicks, only to discover that my kicky baby would have me
waiting for sleep. The last hot summer weeks of my pregnancy, I waited
eagerly and uncomfortably for the baby to be born.
I'm probably more than twice the age that Mary was when she was pregnant
with Jesus. A pregnant teen has more to think about than I did. Today, a
pregnant teen might worry about school, health insurance, money, and
childcare. Or, like Mary probably did, she might worry about telling the father
and what people would say.
Maybe Mary got advice telling her to wait it out. That these things blow over
in time. That her story will soon be old news in the rumor mill. That the
vomiting will end in the second trimester. Maybe someone told Mary that
waiting on God would renew her strength and cause her to mount up on
wings as eagles. Like the scripture says.
I hope Mary kept it real and told those non-pregnant advice-givers that
waiting sucks. I hope she told them that she was too heavy to fly like an
eagle. I hope she told them that growing a person and supportive eco-system
inside one's body does not renew strength. It saps energy.
In both pregnancy and the spiritual life, waiting can be tiring, frustrating, and
worrisome. When all eyes are on the proverbial prize, the journey becomes
no more than a tedious means to the glorified, halo-ed, baby-cradling end.
We can be the same ways in our spiritual lives. We want deliverance from
our challenges, without the road to get there. We want spiritual maturity
without the prayers and discipline required each day. We focus on getting to
heaven more than living on earth. We focus on Jesus, not Mary. The baby,
not the pregnancy.
Advent encourages us to look for the lessons of pregnancy. Here's one:
Although waiting is difficult, rushing to the end can actually diminish the
quality of life. We need each day between conception and birth to grow. We
need to learn to live with discomfort and the unknown. Not because it makes
us stronger. But because it makes us human.
Monica A. ColemanMonica A. Coleman is Associate Professor of Constructive Theology
and African American Religions and Co-Director for Process Studies at Claremont
School of Theology and Claremont Lincoln University. An ordained elder in the African
Methodist Episcopal Church, Coleman has earned degrees at Harvard University,
Vanderbilt University and Claremont Graduate University. She blogs about faith and
depression at Beautiful Mind Blog
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
A. What does it mean to me to wait in true hope?
B. Have I become bitter and cynical, waiting for a better life? How have I not
been truly living, but only waiting for some distant future?
C. Is God's promise alive in my soul? Do I trust God to do what God
promises?
D. Do I live the way I believe? What am I waiting to happen before I start
living the life I desire?
E. What is God calling me to in my life now, in this dark season of
December?