In the New Testament, Book of Revelations, he “who sits on the throne” says, “Behold, I make all things new.” “Behold”…there’s that wonderful word that makes you stop and strain to listen, stop and look to see. “Behold!” It’s rarely followed by an explanation but almost always points to a secret that’s at the heart of a mystery…and a secret that if heard, inevitably bears great blessings. When the angel Gabriel approached the priest Zechariah with the news that life as Zechariah had known it was coming to an end, Zechariah could not “behold” the advent of the new nor could he receive the blessing of the word. He demanded proof and could only sit muted while he waited to see. When Gabriel approached Mary however, and said, “Fear not, but behold, the world as you know it has ended and I make all things new,” Mary indeed beheld. Even without understanding she beheld the blessing, and thereby became a blessing—and responded in kind, “Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord.” So, while Zechariah sat mute for six months, Mary poured forth with such creativity that the blessing of her song continues to this day, “My soul doth magnify the Lord.”
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.
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 Martin
On This Day…
St. Joseph: earthly father of Jesus and patron of fathers and happy death
Mastering an art lies in loss of self in the art—as in the art of living. Pits come when we are thinking most about ourselves. Pain makes us self-aware. Joy makes us other-aware; joy makes us aware of life—of the dance. When I am in the pits, if I forget myself, I can always do my greatest thinking, my greatest creativity.
William M. Boast
On This Day…
Wilfred Owen born 1893 in Oswestry, England, died 1918: World War I poet killed the last day of the war Works: Dulce et Decorum Est, Anthem for Doomed Youth, The Parable of the Old Man and the Young Quotes: “My subject is war, and the pity of war. The poetry is the pity.” “Red lips are not so red as the stained stones kissed by the English dead.”
Ten thousand years ago the Mesolithic hunters armed with stones and pebbles had already attributed magico-religious forces to materials found in their environment. And, as their descendants began the 1500 year journey to becoming an agricultural society, humans brought forward the idea that material objects could carry a sacred force.
In an age of reason and materialism, it is easy to dismiss the idea that an inanimate object could have any power over the human. But there are 10,000 years of evidence to the contrary and perhaps the most compelling argument comes from the fact that man has consistently destroyed the objects of “other” religions in recognition of their power. The pebbles of the Birsek caves were broken in half to annihilate their force. The Taliban destroyed the statues of the Buddha. Even Christians “re-engineered” Elijah’s cup to make it their own.
…I am reminded that symbols and ceremonies are created for civilizations and thus can be destroyed by civilizations. What is meaningful is not their existence in context or their “realism,” but rather the truth that is in their creation. For in their creation is power because it is in creation that we find God.
