and God SAID
Ah! This morning, Fr Richard Rohr's meditation (below, scroll down) quotes a thought from Madeleine L'Engle in which she stands outside her cottage and contemplates Creation, Creator, Universe, and Us. It's concise, and as close as I remember reading to what I also see but try in vain, and frustration, to express in rambling rumination that goes on and on and on.
For anyone who may be taken aback by her assertion that "Christ called everything into being," it's not yet Jesus of Nazareth, nor is it a messiah (Greek, "christ") anointed in David's line; she's talking about the Word, the Logos of whom Gospel John says, "In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through the Word, and without the Word was not anything made that was made. ... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." John goes on to clarify that the Word (Logos) that became flesh and dwelt among us was Jesus of Nazareth, living and dying in Time as we do. The Logos is philosophically the prime mover standing behind, and bringing into being, all that is, seen and unseen. For Christians, the Logos/Word concept is centered in the Nicene Creed's second paragraph (about Jesus Christ) faith claim, "through him all things were made."
John's thought links to the theological assertion in Genesis 1 that "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; and the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters. And God said, "Let there be ... and it was so."
And God SAID, where the speaker, and the will, thought and power of what is said, and the words themselves, and the action that ensues, is/are the Logos, the Word of God.
See if you don't like this morning's meditation as much as I do!
T
God in the Galaxies and in Humanity
Best known for her works of fiction, author Madeleine L’Engle (1918–2007) was a devoted Christian who perceived God’s presence in all things and circumstances. Here she invites readers to join her awe-filled observations:
I look at the stars and wonder. How old is the universe? . . . All we know is that once upon a time or, rather, once before time, Christ called everything into being in a great breath of creativity—waters, land, green growing things, birds and beasts, and finally human creatures—the beginning, the genesis, not in ordinary Earth days; the Bible makes it quite clear that God’s time is different from our time. A thousand years for us is no more than the blink of an eye to God. But in God’s good time the universe came into being, opening up from a tiny flower of nothingness to great clouds of hydrogen gas to swirling galaxies. In God’s good time came solar systems and planets and ultimately this planet on which I stand on this autumn evening as the Earth makes its graceful dance around the sun. It takes one Earth day, one Earth night, to make a full turn, part of the intricate pattern of the universe. And God called it good, very good.
A sky full of God’s children! Each galaxy, each star, each living creature, every particle and sub-atomic particle of creation, we are all children of the Maker. From a sub-atomic particle with a life span of a few seconds, to a galaxy with a life span of billions of years, to us human creatures somewhere in the middle in size and age, we are . . . children of God, made in God’s image.
L'Engle honors the unique role that Jesus as Christ plays in creation:
Don’t try to explain the Incarnation to me! It is further from being explainable than the furthest star in the furthest galaxy. It is love, God’s limitless love enfleshing that love into the form of a human being, Jesus, the Christ, fully human and fully divine.
Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity, Christ, the Maker of the universe or perhaps many universes, willingly and lovingly leaving all that power and coming to this poor, sin-filled planet to live with us for a few years to show us what we ought to be and could be. Christ came to us as Jesus of Nazareth, wholly human and wholly divine, to show us what it means to be made in God’s image. Jesus, as Paul reminds us, was the firstborn of many brethren [Romans 8:29].
I stand on the deck of my cottage, looking at a sky full of God’s children, knowing that I am one of many brethren, and sistren, too, and that Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Bathed in this love, I go into the cottage and to bed.
Madeleine L’Engle, Bright Evening Star: Mysteries of the Incarnation (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1997), 9–11.