Creation
When we look up the sky at night, we see numerous stars in the dark light. Six billions stars are planets like ours. Most of stars we can see through our eyes were born billions years ago.1 Each star and galaxy are evidence of God’s creation. God did not just create them, but has been nurturing them for billions of years. And new stars keep emerging into this universe almost every day. All of God’s creation emerges into this side of the world through mother’s womb regardless. In this infinite and vast universe, meteorites, asteroids, and stars keep emerging with the repetition of contraction and expansion of the Divine womb. Not only the birth of individual stars, but the Milky Way, the spiral of galaxy that is the home to earth, keeps expanding. Constellations of which names and meanings are deeply rooted in Greek culture are changing their position each year. Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian Catholic priest, embraced the universe through his understanding as a cosmologist and physicist. His original theory called the “Cosmic egg” was the original idea of the Big Bang theory; the expansion of the universe and flexibility.2 If we are believers of God, regardless of any denomination or even any religion, I have no doubt that most of us might be infused to Lemaitre’s theory, the “Cosmic egg” by simply looking at stars in the sky at night. As a mother, I call these movements of universe, the “divine womb.” And of course, every external and internal movement that constantly occurs within our internal world reflects all of God’s creation in the divine womb.
Once we know our relationship with the rest of God’s creation in the divine womb, our dialogue with our biblical ancestors naturally begins to be a literal experience beyond our imagination and they become more intimate and real, as if we are talking to our family members living in this life. We start to hear their voices clearly as a part of God’s creation. We come to be participants in the Biblical world rather than readers or observers of Biblical scriptures. We can clearly feel the breath of biblical ancestors and their feelings penetrate our heart and their feelings transform ours. At that moment, we can unite with the past, a unification of God’s creation.
When we learned that each meteorite is made of dust, probably that fact did not stay with us as a significant meaning of our life. We presumably took it as one of other numerous facts and information. At least, I did when I learned about it when I was a high school student. “Dust” is just insignificant particle of matter. But now, through my life experience and by the participation in the biblical scripture, especially Genesis 2:7, “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” and “Genesis 3:19: “you are dust, and to dust you shall return” my eyes have been opened to realize our intimate interconnection with everything. Everything from bacteria to the meteorite that is made of dust flying in the universe is so precious, the dust having been used to create each individual life as a part of God’s creation. We, human begins, are a part of all other participants in the biodiversity of the earth. And every individual’s internal and external movements affect the rest of the world that is inclusive of all creation, it is not limited to the life in the earth. We are dust, but so precious. Our direct and indirect, invisible and visible participation in the world are unescapable as we are all interconnected.
So what makes human beings different from the rest of God’s creation? All animals protect their families from other parts of God’s creation and other phenomenon in the natural cycle by throwing themselves in front of any risks. They show their affection and love by courtship dancing and singing with someone they love. They mourn when a family member or acquaintance passed away. They have their own rituals to express their joy and grief. They have their own unique languages for communication. There are hierarchical systems in many groups in the animal kingdom. Inexperienced animal parents may fail to raise their children but still establish their style through a learning process and they move through life as a family. In underground apartments, many creatures live respecting each other, sharing food and space each other. Many creatures migrate from one spot to others seasonally or daily, depending on how external communities and environments change. So what is the difference between human beings and all of God’s other creatures?
The reason why God planned to let humankind to have dominion over God’s other creatures is that human begins were made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27). Although none of us can accurately grasp who/what God is because God is beyond our understanding, I believe the image of God must be an infinite love that embraces each one of God’s creatures. And because of that, each creature continuously carries on the mission of God’s creation. When humankind was created in a God’s image, humankind must have been sacred without even having any consciousness, just like the moment when a baby is born into this side of the world through a mother’s womb. Therefore, God wanted us to have dominion over all other creatures until Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree that was in the middle of Eden (Genesis 3:6). Once they ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, seeds of good and evil were planted into all of their descendants, including us. Therefore even if we emerged into this side of the world preciously, we have been nurtured by parents who have already had a seed of good and evil within them and we are living in the societies in which good and evil are embedded intricately. “Ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil,” this is our only difference from all of God’s other creatures. Therefore, I believe that we are the most inferior among all other creatures in God’s creation, as long as we live with an arrogant mind, with the belief that we are the most superior creatures.
That is the reason God sent Jesus to this side of the world, to save us, to sanctify the evilness that has been cultivated since that time when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. Jesus, who was truly divine, was born through Mary’s womb as truly human, sent to this side of the world, incarnated as Logos.3 Dwelling between the divine and human world, Jesus was able to be fully inclusive of both.4 Jesus himself was a marginal being and carried out his ministry at the margins of society. He crossed racial, social, economic, political, cultural, religious, and gender borders and boundaries repeatedly and freely.5 Once we can naturally participate in our own rituals, those being the wholehearted repentance of our daily sins, to be forgiven and to forgive others and ourselves, sanctification by Holy Spirit, and our being spiritually rebirth in the holy center that Jesus creates ceaselessly, the repetition will help us to suppress the growth of the seed of evil. When the seed of the original sin can be terminated in each of our hearts, we can be equal to the other creatures in God’s creation. Until then and even after, we human beings, as members of this diverse community, humbly care and protect each other, regardless of who we are, what we are, and what kind of species we are. When we remind ourselves that we are literally living in the biblical stories, we can see our neighbor’s face as one that can be found in the Bible. By surrendering to God’s heart, we keep being reborn and growing with all of God’s creation, together, through the divine womb.
Notes
1. http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/how-do-stars-form-and-evolve/
2. http://www.amnh.org/education/resources/rfl/web/essaybooks/cosmic/p_lemaitre.html
3. Elaine Padilla and Peter C. Phan ed., Theology of Migration in the Abrahamic Religions [New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014], 102.
4. Padilla and Phan ed., Theology of Migration in the Abrahamic Religions, 101.
5. Ibid., 101.
