To work with Things in the indescribable

relationship is not too hard for us;

the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,

and being swept along is not enough.

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out

until they span the chasm between two

contradictions...For the god

wants to know himself in you.

- Rainer Marie Rilke

These familiar words from the first chapter of the first book of the Bible may seem a bit quaint and archaic to us today. They have been read to us since our early childhood. They have been read to us by an astronaut orbiting the earth. They have been used to invoke a non-scientific view of the creation of the world.

But they are really about the age-less questions of why we are here, how we got here and now that we are here, how shall we live. Questions that might still help us today if we continued to ask them in the places we find ourselves: in places of conflict like Iraq and Afghanistan, in places of incredible tragedy like Burma and China, in places and times of social change and transformation, places in need of hope and healing, places like our home the earth.

While stories and myths like this one from the book of Genesis seek to provide answers to age-old questions and guide us in our living, their greatest role may be in how they encourage us to see and to live the questions in a new and deeper way. For me, the "Aha" moments these myths inspire is not in suddenly knowing the right answer but in apprehending the real question. This is the way they enable us to live more authentically in the here and now. This is how they become relevant for us today.

Creation myths in particular reveal a dance between darkness and light, between silence and sound, activity and rest that we are still a part of today. There is something about the alternation, the movement, the rhythm and flow of these primal forces that ask of us our attention and mindful awareness. As any dancer knows, we need to know the pattern and then we need to make it our own.

Creation myths invite us into our own creativity whether we are creating a piece of art, an article of clothing, a piece of music, a piece of furniture, a meal or a life. We are creators by nature. Perhaps this is what it means to be made in the image of God. Though we are at times a little too quick to return the favor and create God in our own image, even here the important thing is the kind of God we create. Will our creation bring more suffering or more joy to the world?

There was a fascinating article in the Monterey County Herald yesterday. It was on the second page under the Health News section. It told the story of a man who had endured severe chronic back pain and felt unable to express in words the nature or the severity of his pain to his doctor. Eventually he created a piece of art using "a photo of himself entombed in packing tape, except for a single eyeball, and a poem about suicide." (from an article by Sam McManis of McClatchy Newspapers that appeared in the The Monterey County Herald on Saturday, May 17, 2008) He showed it to his physician at his next appointment and she got it. She suddenly realized what her patient had been feeling and knew how serious his condition was. I thought that this was a moving description of how an act of self-expression, even an expression of deep personal pain, can be a step on the journey towards healing and wholeness.

Madeleine L'Engle tells a story about a Rabbi that is relevant here. This Rabbi was,

In the first creation story from Genesis we hear the voice of God over and over again in the act of creating saying, "Let there be . . ." Unspoken, but affirmed in the story's narration, is God's daily affirmation that it is good. At the end of every day of creation comes the divine affirmation of creation's inherent goodness. I think that one of the characteristics of God that this creation story reveals is that God loves the goodness of creation and whenever we relate to ourselves, to each other, or to anything in creation as if it is not good then we cause God great pain. There is no love for God without love for ourselves, for one another, and for creation.

Let me close with a familiar poem by Rilke that, for me, sums this all up. Rilke reminds us of the possibility of knowing the divine in the arduous journey of life.