Sunday
The Genesis creation story is really quite extraordinary when compared to other creation stories of its time. Our creation story declares that we were created in the very “image and likeness” of God, and out of generative love.
—Richard Rohr
Monday
Together with all living things, you share the breath of life, participating in the same cycles of birth and death, reproduction and recycling and renewal. You, with them, are part of the story of creation—different branches on the tree of life.
—Brian McLaren
Tuesday
Genesis 1–2:3 does not claim to be a literal-historical text. Rather, it’s a part of a common genre of ancient religious literature known as the creation myth, which is not intended to be a historical representation of events.
—Jennifer Garcia Bashaw and Aaron Higashi
Wednesday
Everything created is in harmony and balance with everything else and with the Creator. The first week of creation is a grand picture of shalom on the earth.
—Randy Woodley
Thursday
The authors of Genesis wrote down the Word that came to them in their time, but in doing so they were putting into human words the eternal Word which speaks the truth for every generation.
—Richard Rohr
Friday
There is no pressure on infinite holy mystery to create and continuously support a world. How could there be? It is done freely, as a flaming, generous act of love, the plentitude of infinite love overflowing.
—Elizabeth Johnson
Week Two Practice
Trusting the Deeper Truth
Informed by science and the traditions of her Penobscot heritage, author Sherri Mitchell invites us to attend to the stories of our own creation:
Our origination stories begin in the stars…. It is from the radiance of that star dust that we were born and the great migration of souls first began.
When we come into this universe, we are born into our first ecosystem, our mother’s womb. There we are nurtured and sustained through an umbilical connection to the body of our birth mother. When we are born into this world, our umbilical connection is transferred from our birth mother to the Earth mother. Our umbilical connection with the Earth mother then nurtures and sustains us for the remainder of our human lives.
Though we have migrated a great distance, the radiance of that star dust still resonates within us. It is the essence of something indescribable that is etched upon our souls. It stirs something deep within us. This stirring is a call of recognition, of remembrance. It continuously reminds us that we are infinitely connected to one another, to the natural world, and to a unified divine source. Evidence of our shared origin can be found all around us. Science has finally caught up with what we have always known, that we are all related. We are all made out of the same foundational elements. It is simply the arrangement of those elements that gives distinct form to what we see before us. We share DNA with every other living being. Approximately 98 percent of our DNA is shared with primates, and about 35 percent is shared with plants…. We all come from the same originating source, and we all comprise the same foundational elements.
We are part of a uni-verse, a collection of individual notes in one continuous song; the song that sang all life into being. This song is the drone of the musical universe. It is the foundation upon which all structure is built. If we listen closely, we can hear this creation song echoing in our bones.
Reference:
Sherri Mitchell, Weh’na Ha’mu’ Kwasset, Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change (North Atlantic Books, 2018), 4–5.
Image credit and inspiration: Sergey Kvint, untitled (detail), 2023, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. A single green shoot rising from the forest floor tells a quiet story of the earth’s own generative imagination.
