Monday 29 June 2009

In writing about the Eros of God, Willimon writes about creation.

Creation implies donation. In a world that is created, all is gift. This is a difficulty truth for those of us who are modern and who have, therefore, been taught to believe that all good is an achievement of our sole fabrication. Knowledge is reduced to power, a possession, the accumulation of which enables us better to dominate the world. Plato (and Augustine) taught that in order really to know something, the would-be knower must be willingly seduced by the object of knowing, to fall in love with what is to be known, to enjoy erotic participation in the object of our knowing. We, however, want to know in order to dominate, to use. In a world of utility, there is paucity of gratitude and little real joy.

So we are invited to "fall in love" with this creation. In that way, we will be united with creation in a way that seeks the welfare of the creation. We will see to the well-being of things before we jump into the arena of seeing how creation can serve us and provide for us and give us all that we want under any conditions we see right. Not only does God love the world and creates out of an endless love, we are invited to love this creation that has been handed to us as a gift. We are a gifted people and the giver of this gift shapes us so that we may be a gift to one another. If we are a part of creations, you could say that we too are donated to one another. Odd thought. Then again, it is a powerful one. We enter into the communities of our lives with a life to offer to others. When we donate money to a cause of which we are supportive, the donation is sent off in the hope that it will be used for the building up of that organization and those who benefit from the presence of that organization. So, as one of the many gifts of creation, we are here within a web of love that invites us to find ways to love one another and our whole creation...and the whole of creation begins to reflect the original donor.

Connection: This is a call to more than environmental care and love. It is much more. Love of creation is a radical adventure because it will mean that we will stand in contradiction to any power that simply attempts to use the gifts of creation for self-satisfaction.

Within the vast creative power of your Reign, O God, we find that we are handed and we become an element of our that creativity and the love that is behind it. Increase in us the ability to lovingly embrace the gift that we are and to share this gift with others. Amen.