The old of us must die in order for the new to be born. What can be birthed, created when the least of us dies, is the best of us. We have the opportunity to create ourselves in the image of the future us to which we aspire; the image of our own Origo to which we aspire. That new us to which we aspire becomes our sun – around which we revolve – the sun whose gravitational force draws us closer and closer while warming and renewing us – day after day after day. One of the meanings of the Greek word “Kosmos” was embroidery. Was Odysseus’ stalwart Penelope creative – weaving during the day and then ripping it out at night to begin a new pattern the next day – so day follows night follows day? We each, individually, with our unique Human Souls, at night ripping apart yesterday’s pattern and each day having the opportunity to weave a new pattern. Giving birth to the new us. What could be more creative than that?
Benjamin H. Leichtling
Elizabeth Goudge born 1900 in Wells, England, died 1984: novelist.
Works: The Little White Horse, The Scent of Water, the trilogy of the Eliot family
Quotes: “Butterflies…not quite birds as they were not quite flowers, mysterious and fascinating as are all indeterminate creatures.” “Faith given back to us after a night of doubt is a stronger thing, and far more valuable to us than faith that has never been tested.” “Most of the basic truths of life sound absurd at first hearing.”
O Beloved Spirit,
In response to Your creation,
A creative response from us.
That from the place where we are—
Unmistakably, like no one else—
We lead.
We decide.
We build.
We dream.
In Your Image. Amen.
Benjamin H. Martin
On This Day…
Passover begins: Jewish eight-day remembrance and re-telling of the Israelites’ journey from slavery in Egypt to freedom
Earth Day and Shinto day honoring the earth and the Diety manifesting as Mother Earth
Vladimir Nabokov born 1899 in St. Petersburg, Russia, died 1977: novelist.
Works: Lolita, Pale Fire, The Gift
Quotes: “The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.” “Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.” “The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.”
The Enneanean was born through the spiritual creativity that comes from listening for the Holy Spirit in all that has come before and then creatively expresses those universal and eternal truths in a way that no one has ever done before. All the colors may have been painted, all the steps danced, all the notes played, yet each new painting, dance, song is different. Each artist has the miraculous potential to take those same old, used parts and from them, to create something new. In the same way, each individual has the potential to dip from the same pool of wisdom, truth and love and to retell, reorder, and thus renew the life and power of the Holy Spirit…No one religion can claim the rights of originality when it comes to the Truth for it is revealed to us only through God’s grace. However, we each see the same old truth in our own original way and have been chosen by God to share these visions through this gift of Christuman.
Alexis Drabek
On This Day…
John Muir’s Birthday
Will Durant says that the essence of humanism is that belief of which the Renaissance philosopher, Pico della Mirandola seems never to have doubted, “that nothing which has ever interested living men and women can wholly lose its vitality—no language they have spoken, nor oracle beside which they have hushed their voices, no dream which has once been entertained by actual human minds, nothing about which they have ever been passionate, or expended time and zeal.” For Pico, the studia humanitatis was not a matter of surveying knowledge and collecting up answers. As he searched the ancient manuscripts, he was not so much interested in cataloguing what the ancients knew as in knowing who the ancients were. For Pico, spending time with the ancients was not a matter of extracting information, but rather of expanding his own imagination and vision by surveying Esi Umano, of what it is to be human. Pico della Mirandola passionately worked to resurrect the ancients for their inspiration and timeless ability to infuse what we deem unimaginable with the vitality of their imagination and the mystery of their creativity.
Teri Martin
It is a foundational Christuman theme that we are imago Dei and “each becomes Human by becoming a creator, created in the image of our Creator.” I think of an image impressioned on photographic film carrying the likeness of the original but requiring a process to develop the image to give it full color and dimension. The imago Dei is an image impressioned on our soul and the process of mixing that image with the earth of us allows us to give full color, full dimension, full expression to our origo—that which is most original to us is at the same time most like the imago Dei. This is not confined to a snapshot image—the noun of God imbedded in God’s direct object—man. Instead the development of the human being is revealed through the imagining—the imagination of God.
This verb form of the Creator creating is the same “verb form” who moved over the surface of the waters and from out of the formless and the void and the darkness called into being light. This verb pattern imagining waters that teem with swarms of living creatures and fashioning skies that fill up with flocks of birds is the verb pattern that some call “flow” but is best conceived as an active imagination—active in and upon all varieties of media, active in and upon all those creatures who are called to become human.
Benjamin H. Martin
On This Day…
First day of Ridvan: Baha’i nine-day celebration
