Beginnings
"A beginning is already a project under way…
A beginning gives us the chance to do work that compensates us for the tumbling disorder of brute reality that will not settle down." —Edward W. Said
"In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep"
—Genesis 1:1
My two-year-old son opens every book he owns and animatedly says, “Nunna-ponna-time!” He cannot even fully enunciate the words, “Once upon a time,” but somehow already innately knows that all stories require a beginning.
In the beginning, when God was creating…
In our sacred text, the primary act ascribed to the divine agent reveals divinity first and foremost as Creator. We catch a glimpse of the First Artist in conversation with this new Creation, stepping back from the cosmic canvas and declaring that which has been bodied forth as good.
Beginnings matter. And our story tells us that God hovered over chaos and created a space in which the holy could dwell. In the beginning, from the beginning: we discover that God is a God of newness, of new things, who simultaneously makes all things new—a constant theme which is repeated over and over throughout the Scriptures.
In the midst of all the chaos of our world, what might change if we viewed creativity and imagination as divine attributes, as practices of the Holy? What difference would it make if the Church innately recognized creativity as a sign that God is God? What could happen if we recognized beginnings as a place of divinity unfolding among humanity, seeking spaces to dwell and sanctify?
Image: "In the Beginning" © Todd Pick, 2016.
"IN THE BEGINNING"
Poetry by Rev. Todd Pick
In the beginning was always already A blur of mysteries hidden in the silence And when the beginning began Wings hovered over wild and waste Feathers flapped above potential and possibility Echoes vibrated rendering rhythms repeated Silence ruptured into speech Becoming story continuously sung Idea, Word, Icon, Wisdom Becoming Creator and cosmos in call and response Becoming Dialogue Becoming Knowledge restructured, animated, alive Becoming Beauty continuously birthed Not as already-achieved result But as search, as desire, as repetition In the beginning
When God was preparing the heavens and the earth