In the Beginning…

In the Beginning

Catherine Crews

In the sacred scriptures of the world there are many stories of creation.  Perhaps two of the best known are Hebrew scriptures in Genesis: the familiar seven-day cosmic creation story, and the Garden of Eden story.  Proverbs has another, telling of Holy Wisdom, present with the Holy One at creation, dancing and playing at the birth of the cosmos.  Job and Ezekiel have yet another creation story, in which an archetypal humanity precedes the formation of the cosmos and tries to steal wisdom for itself.  In the Quran a beautiful creation story tells of Allah reaching deeply into the first human and drawing out all future descendants, asking “Am I not your source and master?”  Humanity’s assent sealed an agreement to willingly take on the divine image in consciousness and surrender.  These stories were first oral traditions of the ancient Middle East, retellings of creation that were not considered to be objective historical facts, but living realities.  “In the beginning” affirms that in one sacred moment, which includes now, creation is happening (Neil Douglas Klotz, Genesis Meditations, pp. 15-20. p. 78).

In the events of our times it seems easier to see disorder and disintegration than to see signs of beginning.  Yet this turmoil has been foretold.  Ancient texts tell of “a time of rending, when the mountains, which have sheltered, fall from their high places, and the voices of men are lost in the crash and thunder of the fall” (EP I p. 358).  The Gospel of Matthew predicts “a time of great distress such as, until now, since the world began, there never has been, nor ever will be again.” (Matthew 24:21).  In both these teachings destruction precedes a promised transition, a new “In the beginning,” a new telling of genesis, one in which humanity is now participating.

Language shapes our thoughts and creates our worldview.  Our western languages and thus our thoughts and ideas about reality are essentially derived from Greek.  We experience time and space and all within them as objective realities.  Perhaps you are familiar with Cynthia Bourgeault’s story of her grandchildren watching Sesame Street and practicing over and over “how is one of these things not like the other.”  This cultural focus on differences is the foundation of separateness, hardwired into our western brains from early on.  We understand creation as an event that took place some 15 billion years ago, when God said “Let there be light,” the formless took on form, and what had been nothing became something. 

From the Semitic languages of our Abrahamic scriptures: biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, which Jesus spoke, and Arabic, a much different world view arises.  Time is not linear and our existence not outside of it.  Neither biblical Hebrew nor Aramaic have a word or concept of anything standing still.  Our beginnings go ahead, carrying us along; our futures follow behind, also moving with us.  “We can best here imagine a caravan in which we’re included:  some people have left first and are ahead of us; some are behind us.”  Creation exists in the ever moving, ever beginning present. Past and future actively participate in now, uniting all moments into one (NDK, GM, p. 16, 21-25).  Manifestation is not separate from divine image, but rather is the enfleshment of divine image.  Everything and all possibilities are included in Sacred Unity.

This can be challenging to Western thinkers whose very name for the Holy One is God, a name derived from a Germanic word meaning good.  Goodness, of course, does not include everything, and particularly does not include anything we choose to define as evil.  On the first day of creation, when God divided light from darkness, in our understanding it is as if the darkness was then somehow left outside of God. 

This is not the case for speakers of Aramaic, for in this worldview there is one substance and it is sacred substance.  The Holy One’s presence is everything and everywhere, always the light shining in the darkness; thus anything is possible at any time.  With Aramaic understanding of unity, John 1:5 “And the light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not” becomes:

First Consciousness shined with Unconsciousness,

Light shines with the Darkness,

Knowing will shine with Unknowing,

and one has not and will not

overcome the other.                                                 The Genesis Meditations, p. 44

In the west we observe the happenings of our time from the dual perspective of the culture in which we live; the dual perspective shapes all our communications, all our attempts at problem solving.  I wonder whether the current turmoil could be evidence not of our failure to love God and our neighbor, but of our response to following this commandment.  Perhaps our seeming inability to move toward solutions is evidence that we are at long last actively attempting to conform to divine intention at the various levels of our understanding.  Whether we have knowledge of the Plan for humanity, or even that there is a plan, we can see our cleavages clearly; in this lies the opportunity to find our way beyond them.  And to do so we must find our way beyond the world view of separateness that dominates our western world culture.

And this, in my opinion, is at the heart of the new beginning we are forging.  It is in the world viewed from soul that we seek to move away from separateness, to move toward experiencing life from within the heart of love that holds all things in wholeness.  We come to live more comfortably in paradox, functioning in the worldview of daily life, and knowing the reality of unity within.  Definitions of good and evil can be understood as ripeness and unripeness.  The teaching in Matthew, “Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit,” we have in Aramaic as “A ripe tree brings forth ripe fruit, an unripe tree brings forth unripe fruit” (Matthew 7:17).  In this worldview, there is no permanent external standard of goodness or of evil, but a recognition of the role of time and place, setting and circumstance in the ripe or unripe expression of the wholeness within. 

With this in mind, let’s look at the task facing humanity as it prepares for the new beginning, “the great return to earth which has been planned for the Spiritual Hierarchy to walk again openly among men.”  We are told, “this calls for a fuller expression of the spiritual will-to-good than ever before, and the cooperation of humanity” (EXH, p.522), for the will aspect of divinity can find expression only through humanity.  In this we may find a deeper understanding of the commandments to love God and our neighbor.

The spiritual will-to-good, or will-to-love, that Jesus invoked when he said “thy will be done” in Gethsemane has a meaning far greater than his consent to death of the physical body.  In the Aramaic, the word “will” carries the energy not only of will, but also of delight and desire. 

Its roots point to something that swells or rises, follows a certain harmony, and moves like a large crowd or a host of stars.  This force unites wave and particle realities.  It exemplifies the harmony of the cosmic spheres, which move in their appointed courses simply because it is their deepest purpose and delight to do so.  We might not even call this a type of love, except that it expresses the deepest calling of our being when we are in tune with the cosmos.  When Yeshua says “thy will be done” in Gethsemane, he asks that this power of desire support him.  Other ways to hear this phrase can be: 

 

Let your delight be,

Your desire be,

Your whole unfolding harmony

be and move through me,

as individual as a moment of pleasure,

as cosmic as my place in the stars.                    The Genesis Meditations, p. 153-154

 

The cooperation of humanity in the new beginning is the establishment of right human relations.  Where there has been materialism, separateness, and selfishness there will be the qualities of soul:  spiritual understand, inclusiveness, and love; these qualities express harmlessness, the center of right human relations.  Scripture tells us to love one another, this love is unconditional goodwill moving from inside out.  And, we are told to love our enemies, those whose words and actions are excessive, swelling outward from an inner lack.  The Aramaic provides what we may take as good advice:

 

Kindle feeling slowly

for that which feels excessive

out of proportion with your rhythm. 

Let the germ of love break

gradually through the shells of pride

that separate you from another

you from another your-self.

The husks become kindling

For a fire of new birth in which

Two become one,

knowing the One behind all.                         The Genesis Meditations, p. 148-149

Realizing the unity of creation, recognizing that we are in the midst of a new telling of the creation story and our role in founding it, means that if done properly or by enough people, life on all levels will change, and change now.  Truly today we are participating “In the Beginning…” 

As Aramaic ears would hear…

          In the Beginningness,

In the time before time begins,

In the rest before movement begins,

In the space where nothing but

Elohim is, was, and will be.

It all unfolds and moves

like the wings of a bird taking flight,

like a spark turning to flame,

spreading to fire in all directions.

From this center everything travels

toward its purpose

somehow moving together and yet

each with its own kernel of destiny

known only to the Holy One.                                    The Genesis Meditations, p. 108