We are all connected. A butterfly
flapping its wings on one side of the world affects the lives of those on the
other side...hum, something to give serious thought to-but how is this all
possible. We are mere dust? Or is the thought now, we are mere Stardust? Connected
cosmologically by matter to our ancestors, to our future, to our heritage??
What does all this mean? My being, my physical being is made up of other
particles, connected by a heart that is unique. What does this have to do
with my faith, my religious beliefs? How I live in the world?
“From a scientific perspective,
evolution is the way nature works. Physical reality is not composed of fixed,
stable structures but a flow of information and energy organized forms that
interact with other forms and their surrounding environments.” Again, we are
all connected, but how? “Nature is more like a dance or a community at play
than a clockwork mechanism. Today we know that evolution pertains to all
aspects of human life including culture, religion, and economics.” Traditional
theology allows for the “new creation” and understands divine creativity as
sustaining the world continually. It has been in the twentieth century that the
notion that the universe is historical with an ongoing story, that begins in
earnest to reshape the minds and imaginations of not only scientists but
theologians. Two known individuals who made the connections of theology and science are Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)
and Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). “Teilhard wrote that the human person 'is
nothing else than evolution becomes conscious of itself.'”
For me, I am not a theologian or
a scientist but I draw upon the readings of such greats, and include in my
reading, the prolific writing of my friend and current theologian, Sister Ilia
Delio, a scholar at Georgetown. So with these insights and reading, I return to
the thoughts, are we dust? Or stardust? The cosmos is now seen as a process,
not with an end goal, but rather as an on-going story that evolves, with
particles that go from one century to the next, dust to dust, stardust to
stardust and “is itself on a journey into God.”
“Remember we are the dust of
stars,” proclaimed by Judy Cannato, a respected American Catholic author. I reiterate
what she continues to share, we are, all of us, connected, we breathe the same
molecules of air, and we are composed of the very particles of our ancestors.
We are all one, united by the life force most of us call GOD or the BELOVED. WE
are called into being by the very breath of this force, this divine. What if this life force, this energy were
pure LOVE energy? What if we fasted from
our own pursuits and concerned or focused ourselves on simply acknowledging and
responding to this LOVE force, to the fact that we are all connected and indeed
one?”
We have heard about angels- what
if indeed we are surrounded by a legion of angels and responded “Behold the
image of God!” What if we actually lived our lives believing this notion?
Recognizing that our unity has as its foundation, the foundation of a common
life – love force we call the Holy, or the Mystery, or simply GOD. That we live our lives believing that the
love mystery is what is common in each human being. If we lived as if every
creature is the image of the Holy, of the mystery of LOVE, that all of life is
sacred? Then how can we help release that energy in positive ways? How can we help but release the unjustly that
are bound, untie the thongs of the yoked, help set free the oppressed, share
bread with the hungry, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked, and not turn our
backs on our own? It becomes a longing, a yearning to do these things.
Cosmology enables us as believers
to relate a physical world consistent with our religious understandings. We are
in a new time and a new place, to reframe our beliefs in the light of the
expanding universe and cosmos. By
engaging our faith stance with the new insights we can come to deeper and newer
conclusions. Such as, not a single one of us can be whole if all of us are not
whole. When our life-giving connections
are re-established, we can then allow the light and our faith to rise, we can work
to heal that which is broken, only then will we truly have plenty. When beauty
is restored, justice is served and then we are one. Justice restores the original
beauty, the love, healing that which has been broken or destroyed.
Perhaps,
our life lived with the HOLY is really about this- to recognize how each of us
is connected to the other, from those within our own households and religions,
to those in our world that we will never meet or see. To acknowledge that our type of
connectedness, the quality will be often poor, that our lack of understanding
or awareness grows with time and experience in life, and this lacking is what
in essence contributes to the oppression and injustice of others. How often I
have spoken out of ignorance or have said unkind words or placed judgments upon
someone or something I simply did not understand. These actions or words have
the effect of placing a yoke or burden upon another. How frequently does fear
within myself keep me from gaining knowledge or keep me locked in my own sense
of righteousness that I cannot see or hear the words of another? How often do I
turn inwardly, and say or proclaim, Behold the image of God?
What I
do know, is that when I genuinely respond or see with open eyes another human
being, and recognize the breath of the HOLY- and deeply sense the
connection-the result in one of healing, of commonality, of a light that
guides—a grace that becomes the instrument of God. A grace that helps me to respond in kindness,
and truth, without brutality or harshness, because God and love can only be
gentle and kind. My recognizing that we are all connected is the beginning, the
first step in bringing about a more just world and seeing both the cosmos and
my faith with new eyes. Being aware of
the connectedness is in itself an initial action of healing and reconciliation.
Holding on to the basic truth, that the earth does not disclose a need for God,
but we, humanity, and all of the cosmos is on an on-going journey that is in
itself a journey and discover of a loving GOD, and is the beginning of a new
framework for my faith. So as we began, we are dust, or are we stardust?
REFERENCE
Cannato, Judy, Quantum
Grace. Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame. 2003
Delio, Ilia. From Teilhard to Omega. Orbis Books,
Maryknoll, NY. 2014
Richard Lederman
Vayyitser adonai
elohim et ha-adam afar min ha-adamah
Vayippah be-apav
nishmat hayyim
Vayyehi ha-adam
le-nefesh hayyah
And Lord God fashioned the earthling from the dust of the
earth
And breathed into its nostrils the breath of life
And the earthling became a living being.
Genesis 2:7
Within western civilization, images of the divine derive
mainly from the Bible. But the Bible is not a monolithic document—not in its
portrayal of God nor in any other aspect of its teaching. It is a
mutli-layered, multi-vocal collection of teachings that were composed in
different places at different times and by different people. It’s portrayal of
God, therefore, offers images that both repel and attract; images that are
conducive to a contemporary religious experience and images that are inimical to
that experience. I’d like to begin with images of the divine that we might
avoid as a way of then focusing on images that can enable and encourage an
encounter with the divine that is more consistent with our contemporary worldview.
This effort to forge a modern theology is critical, since
our understanding of the divine and of the spiritual world in general cannot be
detached from our other experiences in the world. Our images of the divine have,
obviously, undergone significant change over the course of human history. What
is clear in terms of the evolving human perception of God is that our
understanding of the cosmic structure is permeated with elements of our social
structure. Many of our images of the divine that emerge from the Hebrew Bible
reflect a social structure that had codified human hierarchy, power and
authority.
According to its own founding narratives in the Hebrew Bible,
ancient Israel saw itself as emerging out of and away from the advanced urban
civilizations of the ancient world—Mesopotamia and Egypt. In the end,
ironically, Israelite society co-opted the theocratic structure of these
societies, which were hierarchic, authoritarian and patriarchic, constructed
with the aim of establishing a source of power and authority for military,
political and social control, both internally and externally. This hierarchical
social structure is reflected in a cosmic structure that envisions a pantheon
of gods operating under the authority of a divine king, who, like his human
counterpart, is also the ultimate source of power and authority in establishing
both cosmic and world order.
While, as noted, biblical society—the society of ancient
Israel—understood its early manifestation as a sort of protest against these hierarchical
structures of power and authority, the Hebrew Bible in its final edited form
emerges from the royal Jerusalem ideology presided over by a hereditary
monarchy in alliance with a hereditary religious authority in the form of the
Temple priesthood. The ancestral “God of the Fathers” from Genesis who
travelled with our semi-nomadic ancestors, protecting them, communing with
them, in effect, preserving their sense of solidarity with the community and
with God as a form of kinship, was co-opted in the Davidic monarchy and
transformed into a divine king much like the divine kings who presided over the
pantheons of these other ancient civilizations. The covenant of communion that
seems to be the trademark of the God of the Fathers becomes a covenant of obedience
and authority, requiring punishment for any infringement. The “God as Celestial
King” image often presents the world with a remote, authoritarian, patriarchal
deity, demanding strict obedience and loyalty and proffering in some cases
extreme punishment for those who betray that loyalty. Indeed, even when the
biblical religions allude to God’s love, it is often expressed in such a way
that God’s love is demonstrated in that demand for obedience and loyalty.
This analysis is, of course, the dark side of the western
concept of God. There is a bright side, and it is this bright side that might,
in the end, lead us to a contemporary refashioning of our understanding of divinity—one
that overcomes this image of hierarchy, power and authority. Biblical religion
understands that there is an ontological connection between the divine and the
human. Not only are we told that humanity is created in the divine image, but
that there is a piece of the human being that is, in fact, divine. The second
chapter of Genesis describes how God fashioned an “earthling,” adam, Adam, from the dust of the adamah, the earth. But this earthling
was not fully brought into being in this manner. More was required. So God
breathed the divine breath into the nostrils of the earthling, and the
earthling then became a living being. In other words, the life force of
humanity is the breath of God.
We may find an even more significant indication of divine
immanence and connection to creation embodied in the divine name. In the Hebrew
Bible, God has a name. God’s name is indicated by four Hebrew letters that
correspond to YHWH. Classical Hebrew—and even modern Hebrew to this day—does
not indicate vowels in written form; only the consonants are written. Since
from ancient times, this name was considered so sacred that it could not be
pronounced, we can only guess based on a variety of linguistic factors that it
may have been pronounced Yahweh. This four-letter Hebrew name is also the basis
for the frequent reference to the biblical God as Jehovah.
Since the name could not be pronounced, various substitutes
and ciphers were used from very early times. The Septuagint, the Greek
translation of the Bible undertaken in the 3rd century BCE,
translates this name with the Greek word kurios,
meaning “Lord.” In the synagogue liturgy to this day, the name is substituted
with the Hebrew word adonai, meaning
“my Lord.”
Regrettably, this substitution wreaks havoc on the
significance of this divine name and the nature of divinity that the name
reveals. The substitution of the word “Lord” for the divine name simply plays
into the hierarchical and authoritative portrait of God discussed above. The
name actually consists of a form of the verb “to be.” In Exodus 3:13-15, Moses
asks God to identify God’s self in a way that would be familiar to the
Israelites. Moses is concerned that they would not believe that he had actually
had a divine encountered. God says, “ehyeh
asher ehyeh, “I am what I am. Tell them ‘I am’ has sent me to you.” God
then says, “Tell them Yahweh… has sent me to you.” The name Yahweh seems to be
the third person equivalent of the first person ehyeh, “I am,” and must mean something like “He is.” It would seem
that the divine name ought to be translated not with a term that indicates some
form of transcendent authority, but with something that would indicate the
divine presence within the phenomenal world—Being itself, Existence itself.
In my blog post titled “Biblical Pantheism—An Immanent
Sanctity” (www.thereligioushumanist.com,
s.v., “Biblical Pantheism”), I noted a passage in Isaiah that has become part
of both the Jewish and Christian liturgy which acknowledges this divine
immanence—the presence of God residing within the phenomenal world. This
awareness of divinity permeating creation, not separate from the phenomenal
world but part of it, indeed the very basis of all existence—Being itself—is
not a new idea, but has deeply affected the spirituality of the peoples of the
east. For us, however, it offers an opportunity to cast off the spiritual
shackles of power and authority and to recognize and merge our lives with the
divine that dwells within us and within all of creation.
Richard's Response to Sr. Sharon
Leave it to a religious sister to bring obtuse theological
ideas into the realm of human relationship. Whereas my cosmology tends to focus
on the divine/human connection, I tend to ignore the impact of this cosmology
on our sense of connection to each other and to the rest of creation. Whether
we resonate to the “ripples from the gravitational waves created in a violent
inflationary event at the dawn of time” as reported by The Washington Post on March 19, or consist of atoms manufactured
in stars at the beginning of the universe, we all share in the matter and
energy created in the infinitely hot, infinitesimally small point of space and
time which gave rise to our cosmos.
If I am to take seriously the idea that the entire cosmos is
infused with divine spirit and energy; that divinity is indeed inherent in and
internal to all of creation, then we all share that divine spirit and energy.
Indeed, one would have to conclude that even inanimate objects are infused with
divinity, the same spirit and energy that animate us. I often chuckle to myself
when people insist that this vast cosmos must include other forms of
“intelligent life,” like the kind we’re so desperately searching for on Mars or
the moons of Jupiter. So what would “intelligent life” look like? Well, we’re
alive, and we’re intelligent. In fact, we’re the ones who define “life” and
“intelligence.” We’re the model for any understanding of life and intelligence.
But what if the cosmos itself were alive and intelligent?
What if the cosmos were infused, suffused with life and intelligence? Then each
of us becomes an atom, a molecule in a vast cosmic sea of life and
intelligence.
It’s not so truly farfetched. There is a wondrous sense of
harmony and balance in creation. We’re told that gravity is the attraction that
one mass has on another, and that our solar system is sustained through the
balance of gravity and centrifugal force—attraction and repulsion. Our own
lives vibrate to the harmony of celestial cycles—sun, earth, moon and stars.
But is this love? Is it pure love? Can we count on pure love
as the well-spring of being in this cosmic symphony? What do we do with that
repelling force that sustains earth and the entire solar system as we orbit the
sun? What do we do with exploding stars, super novas, asteroid collisions and
all of the violence and destruction that seem to be just as much a part of our
universe as the benevolent forces that attract us?
If we are to truly understand God in the cosmos—and even God
transcending the cosmos—we need to address that. The classic Jobian
response—God is simply beyond our grasp—while tempting, is simply not adequate.
Sr. Sharon's Response to Richard
Vayippah be-apav
nishmat hayyim
Vayyehi ha-adam
le-nefesh hayyah
And Lord God fashioned the earthling from the dust of the
earth
And breathed into its nostrils the breath of life
And the earthling became a living being.
Genesis 2:7
I have always been amazed (and sometimes amusedJ
) at the difference in the way individuals view life and/or the Divine, even
after having the exact same expression and experience together.
Two individuals can live similarly and view the divine as
the human man, or as I once heard a colleague say “and old man with a long
white beard.” And another individual, maybe even a relative, a sibling, such as
my own sister, who will insist on the masculinity of God. And then there is Richard from another faith
who can share the view from the biblical and experiential expression of the
divine. A divine that cannot even be
named or said aloud.
Most individuals are liminal in
the expression of the encounter with the divine, but not in the experiential as
living is a constant encounter of the divine within creation. To have breath
and to be formed from the earth, connects us in the very essence of ourselves
with the divine.
In touch with God's desire as well
as our own, to live in relationship, and to seek to be one who loves, we catch
a glimpse of the divine who “breathed” into our being the breath of life. It is
through our faith that we participate as co-creators within the creation story.
It formulates our view and experience of the divine. So one individual can view
the masculine expression, one the feminine, and another simply the expression
and experience of the beloved.
Scripture as pointed out by
Richard, provided the common foundation.
And through this common foundation, “there is a bright side, and the
bright side….leads us to a contemporary refashioning of our understanding of divinity.” We understand that the basis is both our
society and our common experience of scripture.
How we interpret or filter the experience through our breath within,
forms our external faith expression.
There is common ground. There is
holy ground….as all ground is holy and all breath is holy. We are all connected.
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