Read this on an airplane, which proved generative. As a teacher, I love book learning but this I know for certain: bookishness is not wisdom. Book learning is a stage in one's development, not the end point. Got to get your head out of books, and live the thing you've been reading about. Only then does real learning occur, and real knowledge take shape. And so I love the focus on creation, and two questions spring to mind. Where do we find, or see, creation? My answer: absolutely everywhere, all the time, literally. I don't just see creation from the plane (though the views take my breath away, every time); maybe the eyes with which we see, the mind and heart with which we feel and reflect, also creation? And maybe more than that, maybe we, in trying (though imperfectly) to build the kingdom, become (admittedly feeble) co-creators? Isn't God's story, God's work, manifesting and unfolding through us, always? Which leads me to another question: when we think of Creation as that other of God's books (which I very deeply like), are we -- you, me, the guy sitting next to me with bad breath, the woman across the aisle ordering whiskey at 6:00 am -- characters in that book? Or co-authors? Or somehow both and neither? God bless, Chris. What wonderful stuff. So so so much love and gratitude.
I so deeply appreciate your thoughts, Andy. It sparked a lot, and it took some serious self-control to resist the temptation to come back immediately.
I share your view that all is creation.
How do you find yourself answering your own question about our role as characters/co-creators? It's a wonder I have often wondered. Sometimes I think that to suggest we have any role at all might seem to make God smaller and ourselves more than we ourselves we created to be . But that doesn't seem real to me. If, God is Love, and not merely something God does, then Love is eternally creative and makes all things new, then are we not, simply by obeying God's command that we be the hands and feet and heart of Christ - being invited into the very creation process?
It's hard for me to see it any other way.
Thank you again for your provocative question. I love you, brother.
Read this on an airplane, which proved generative. As a teacher, I love book learning but this I know for certain: bookishness is not wisdom. Book learning is a stage in one's development, not the end point. Got to get your head out of books, and live the thing you've been reading about. Only then does real learning occur, and real knowledge take shape. And so I love the focus on creation, and two questions spring to mind. Where do we find, or see, creation? My answer: absolutely everywhere, all the time, literally. I don't just see creation from the plane (though the views take my breath away, every time); maybe the eyes with which we see, the mind and heart with which we feel and reflect, also creation? And maybe more than that, maybe we, in trying (though imperfectly) to build the kingdom, become (admittedly feeble) co-creators? Isn't God's story, God's work, manifesting and unfolding through us, always? Which leads me to another question: when we think of Creation as that other of God's books (which I very deeply like), are we -- you, me, the guy sitting next to me with bad breath, the woman across the aisle ordering whiskey at 6:00 am -- characters in that book? Or co-authors? Or somehow both and neither? God bless, Chris. What wonderful stuff. So so so much love and gratitude.
I so deeply appreciate your thoughts, Andy. It sparked a lot, and it took some serious self-control to resist the temptation to come back immediately.
I share your view that all is creation.
How do you find yourself answering your own question about our role as characters/co-creators? It's a wonder I have often wondered. Sometimes I think that to suggest we have any role at all might seem to make God smaller and ourselves more than we ourselves we created to be . But that doesn't seem real to me. If, God is Love, and not merely something God does, then Love is eternally creative and makes all things new, then are we not, simply by obeying God's command that we be the hands and feet and heart of Christ - being invited into the very creation process?
It's hard for me to see it any other way.
Thank you again for your provocative question. I love you, brother.
So wonderful, So beautiful and So Needed. Thank you.