Creation
As the celebration of Christmas fades into the past, I came upon this poem by Howard Thurman:
As time passes, I've found my sense of "Incarnation" expanding beyond human flesh. Maybe we need a new word for the life-giving, animating, intimate union of Creator and Creation. I think it's our brother, Thomas A, who writes: "Where God is not, nothing is". And when I take this to prayer, I find myself in the space that is beyond "God and me". Or maybe "God and me" are taken into infinite space. How to describe the indescribable?
In Jesus we see God manifest in a person and in people. The same Spirit that animated Jesus, animates all of creation, where God is creating and giving birth.
"The indwelling Spirit of God moves over the void, breathes into the chaos, quickens, warms, sets free, blesses, and continuously creates the world, empowering its evolutionary advance. Bringing the Spirit back into the picture this way leads ecological theology to envision God ....within and around the emerging, struggling, living, dying, and renewing circle of life and the the whole universe itself." *
When you look at these squares of our prayer quilt, what do you feel? The psalmist looked at the stars in the sky and sang a hymn of praise. I wonder what he would have done with a Hubble telescope!
There are many positions and attitudes in prayer. As well as going into our room and praying to our Father in secret, we can expand our spirit to embrace ... everything.
Barbara Cooper, OP Vancouver Island, BC Canada
* Quest for the Living God - E.A. Johnson **photos from NASA website
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