CREATION

Check-in: Share a favorite relative or friend story, a time when you felt unconditional love from another person.

SCRIPTURE READING

Psalm 104: 1-9, 24, 35

Bless the LORD, O my soul. 

O LORD my God, you are very great.

 You are clothed with honor and majesty, 

wrapped in light as with a garment. 

You stretch out the heavens like a tent,
 you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, 

you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind,
you make the winds your messengers, fire and flame your ministers.

You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken.

You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.

At your rebuke they flee; at the sound of your thunder, they take to flight.

They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys 

to the place that you appointed for them.

You set a boundary that they may not pass, 

so that they might not again cover the earth.

O LORD, how manifold are your works! 

In wisdom you have made them all; 

the earth is full of your creatures.

Praise the LORD!

CREATION QUOTES

A divine voice sings
through all creation.

~ a Jewish prayer

Creation has been given to us as a clean window through which the light of God could shine into the human soul. Sun and moon, night and day, rain, sea, crops, the flowering tree: all these things are transparent.

~ by Thomas Merton in “Horizons” thanks to Nancy Conley

Just as God speaks to us through the words of scripture, so God speaks to us through the elements of creation. The cosmos is like a living sacred text that we can learn to read and interpret. Just as we prayerfully ponder the words of the Bible in Christian practice, and as other traditions study their sacred texts, so we are invited to listen to the life of creation as an ongoing, living utterance of God.

~ from CHRIST OF THE CELTS by J. Philip Newell

There is a love that is at the core of creation, a love that is born of oneness and carries the sacred interrelationship of all life. This love is alive within the hearts of those who love the Source of all life; its music is the song of the soul and the hidden purpose of creation. 

~ From THE SIGNS OF GOD by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Liken yourself to a beautiful original part of creation—a true work of art. Then each day ask yourself how you are living: either in ways that show gratitude for this beauty or in ways that indicate how you are defacing it.

~ from SNOW FALLING ON SNOW by Robert J. Wicks

We have the potential to become like a tree planted by the stream. Like the tree, we need nurturance — both of water and of sun if we are to blossom. We need nurturance from all the elements; without the soil, the sun, and the air, our food will not grow. We need nurturance from the plants. We all need human nurturance in the form of friendship and love, and we need God’s own divine nurturance which empowers us to trust in the Author of creation.

~ by Alice L. Laffey

MEDITATION

Imagine that you are sitting comfortably with a God-image.  It could be Mother God, Father God, Sister Holy Spirit, Grandmother God- any personification of God that brings you a feeling of all-accepting love.

Speak with that God image, that God-personality about two aspects, two traits of yourself.  One will be a trait you are quite pleased with and proud of.  One trait will be something that often trips you up, makes you feel unworthy.  For example, I’m pleased that I like working creatively on “lesson plans” for my spirituality meetings.  My second trait is too often wishing for and needing recognition from others.  

The traits you speak about with your God-person needn’t be big or heavy or overly thought-out.  Just bring two parts of yourself to mind and ask your God-person to help you see them as God does, maybe as SHE does.  You may be surprised at your loving God’s response to your traits – characteristics that God crafted in you for wonderful purposes!

Then, ask your God-person for ways you might use those traits and talents as co-creators of LOVE in the world.  What might be your “sealed orders” from God?  What are you uniquely capable of creating to further God’s lovely creation?

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MORE CREATION QUOTES

OUR INDIVIDUAL GIFTS

To be fully human, we must recognize the full humanity of all other people. Each of us will be fully human only when we recognize the Aliveness of all Creation, when we learn to speak of God in Everything, and to humbly admit our interdependence and Oneness with the Great Web we call Creation.

~ Lisa Lofland Gould

When we grow radishes in a small container in a city apartment, we participate in creation. We sustain the globe. When we sweep the street in front of a house in the dirtiest city in the country, we bring new order to the universe. We tidy the Garden of Eden. We make God’s world new again. When we repair what has been broken or paint what is old or give away what we have earned that is above and beyond our own sustenance, we stoop down and scoop up the earth and breathe into it new life again, as God did one morning in time only to watch it unfold, unfold, and unfold through the ages.

~ from THERE IS A SEASON by Joan Chittister, thanks to Liz Stewart

CREATION AS MUSIC

While I was writing about silence and explosions and the moment of creation, I made an interesting typing error. I wrote “big band”” instead of “big bang.” I’d like to think that it was not an error but the voice of creation typing for me. From now on that’s my theory on the origin of everything. Creation began with a big band, and ever since there has been rhythm, style and beauty throughout the universe. Our job is to look and listen for the big song, and then to join in, following the beat established by the Conductor leading the big band.

~ from PRESCRIPTIONS FOR LIVING by Bernie S. Siegel

Old illustrations show God tuning the great musical instrument of creation… We all vibrate sympathetically like different octaves of the same tone, our human hearts pulsing in the same rhythms as those of the material and spiritual worlds… We know we are well on the way toward soul when we feel interconnected to the world and the people around us and when we live as much from the heart as from the head.

~ from CARE OF THE SOUL by Thomas Moore