Genesis 1:1 - 2:4a

Praying for Darkness in a Year of Glare Poet Rod Jellema has a marvelous poem by this title. In truth, much of what he wrote attempted to redeem darkness, to make a friend of it or, perhaps, to remind us of its friendlier permutations. Several of these poems are available in the public domain (or at least via google books.). Here I especially commend his poem, Come Winter.

Where there is darkness, there is fear. Where this is light, however, there is life. There is also safety and confidence. In his January 10, 2017 New York Times article, “The Lights Are On in Detroit,” Michael Kimmelman describes how in December, 2016 Detroit officials turned on the last if its 65,000 new streetlights. Those lights are spread all across the city. Before that, businesses like Kuzzo’s Chicken and Waffles had to shut down by dinnertime because people didn’t want to go out to eat after the sun went down. They were afraid of what people might do to them in the dark. Foot traffic, says its owner Mr. Spencer, “almost fell to zero after dark. Since the lights came on, it’s up 15 percent across this neighborhood.” Mr. Kimmelman also notes that he Louisiana Creole Gumbo Restaurant catered to neighborhood workers before drug dealers moved in and the lights went out. Now the lights are on, says the restaurant’s owner, Mr. Spencer, “and diners are returning at night.”

Dr. Jay Alberts of the Cleveland Clinic was participating in RAGBRAI. For anybody out of town on Zoom who may be unfamiliar with RAGBRAI, it involves riding your bike across Iowa for a week along with thousands of other people and eating lots of pie. Alberts was on a tandem bike with Cathy, a Parkinson’s patient. The ride was intended to bring attention to the need for more Parkinson’s research. But Alberts and Cathy stumbled onto an important finding: Cathy’s physical abilities improved after a day of pedaling, and then improved more after another day. Alberts knew exercise was important, but how important was driven home to him on RAGBRAI. On a tandem, Cathy was forced to go at his speed, which was significantly faster than hers. On the bike, Cathy didn’t feel as stiff. She was pedaling faster, and her brain function was better. As she wrote postcards and mailed them to her family from across Iowa, her handwriting became more legible. “It was a serendipitous discovery,” Alberts said. “Science can happen anywhere, even in the cornfields of Iowa.”...

Some while back I read Stephen Ambrose’s book Undaunted Courage that details the voyage westward of explorers Lewis and Clark. Again and again as they pushed west in the early 1800s, these two explorers and their comrades were stunned to see prairies literally black with herds of buffalo, the thunder of whose hoof beats reverberated for miles. Some days the sunshine would be blocked from view for long periods due to passing flocks of passenger pigeons. One day the river on which they were traveling became clotted with some white, fluffy substance. Upon rounding a bend in the river they discovered the source: a mind-numbing rookery of white pelicans who were molting. Something like that is what Genesis 1 shows us as God’s original intent: to fill the world up to the brim with swarms of creatures...

This trajectory of human history is profoundly and succinctly summarized in one of the great theological works of our time--the 2008 Pixar movie WALL-E. Do any of you remember that movie? It is set at some point in a post-apocalyptic future when the earth has become so contaminated and so full of trash that is no longer habitable by people. So the people have all evacuated to a gigantic spaceship where they sit in motorized lounge chairs and drink slurpees all day while back on earth a solitary robot is tasked with cleaning things up. The movie makes it clear that human life, abstracted from the created world, is silly and meaningless. The story ends on a hopeful note, though, because the robot spots a plant starting to grow in the earth's soil and the spaceship lands and the people return and begin to plant and grow things again...

If you are able to use your sound system during a sermon, I would recommend using a recording of Richard Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zerathustra” when you come to “let there be light.” Pull that up on Google and you’ll find a stunning video from “2001:A Space Odyssey” (I think). The combination of trumpets, tympani and full orchestra will send chills up your spine. That might help your people feel the awesomeness of God’s creation power. The title of the piece is problematic, of course. You might have to hide that. One way to help people understand the concepts of tohu webohu would be to recall the chaos of the first Presidential Debate in the United States back in late September. It was without form and empty and darkness was over the face of the deep, no matter what party you are part of. With speakers interrupting, making ridiculous claims, attacking each other, clashing like a couple of furious sixth graders on the playground, it was a picture of waves crashing into each other in a storm-tossed sea.

Years ago, I read The Elegant Universe, Brian Greene’s blockbuster book about string theory. I found it both fascinating and faith challenging. So did Jeffery Kluger who interviewed Greene in the March 2-9, 2020 issue of Time. He writes, “If you’re feeling all dreamy about the universe, here’s a pro tip: don’t tell Brian Greene. That guy can chill your cosmic buzz fast. I recently swung by the office [of Greene] full of happy, giddy questions and came away pretty much empty. Is there such a thing as a natural moral order? I wondered. Not in this universe there isn’t. What about a purpose to the universe, then—the reason the whole 13.8 billion-year-old shebang with its hundreds of billions of galaxies and trillions of planets happened in the first place? Nope, Greene says, no such purpose, adding, ‘And that’s Ok.’ Surely, though, Greene will grant the existence of free will…. Sorry, not a chance. ‘Your particles are just obeying their quantum-mechanical marching orders….’” Doesn’t such a cold, cruel, mechanical universe depress students? “I’ll be frank. I have some students who come in crying. And they say, ‘This is kind of shaking my world up,’ and I say right back at them, ‘That’s not a bad thing. It’s fine to have your world shook. The pieces may fall back in the end to where they were, and they may not.’” In the end, says Greene, “My feeling is that the reductionistic, materialist, physicalist approach to the world is the right one. There isn’t anything else; these grand mysteries will evaporate over time.” Note, “my feeling.” Read, “my faith.’

A strong contrast of light and dark in the visual art is called chiarascuro (/kyärəˈsk(y)o͝orō/), which literally means light-dark (chiaro meaning “clear” or “bright" and oscuro meaning “obscure”' or “dark”). Seventeenth-century Italian painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (usually just referred to as "Caravaggio"), was the painter who first made this strong contrast of light and dark into a trademark of his style. Artists who came immediately after him and followed his style were referred to as Caravaggists...

Dr. Jay Alberts of the Cleveland Clinic was participating in RAGBRAI. If you are new to Iowa, this means riding your bicycle across Iowa for a week with thousands of other people - and eating lots of pie. Alberts was on a tandem bike with Cathy, a Parkinson’s patient. The ride was intended to bring attention to the need for funding for Parkinson’s research. But Alberts and Cathy stumbled onto an important finding: Cathy’s physical abilities improved after a day of pedaling, and then improved more after another day. Alberts knew exercise was important, but how important was driven home to him on RAGBRAI. On a tandem, Cathy was forced to go at his speed, which was significantly faster than hers. On the bike, Cathy didn’t feel as stiff. She was pedaling faster, and her brain function was better. As she wrote postcards and mailed them to her family from across Iowa, her handwriting became more legible. “It was a serendipitous discovery,” Alberts said. “Science can happen anywhere, even in the cornfields of Iowa.”...

(Includes video of threatened animals from the book of Genesis.)

Sometimes it’s easier to notice a creature than its creator. One of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web’s special creatures is a pig named Wilbur. He’s enjoying his new home until one day he learns that eventually farmer Homer Zuckerman will probably kill him and turn him into bacon and ham. So Charlotte the spider hatches a three-step plan to save Wilbur...Everybody who visited the pigpen had a good word to say about Wilbur. Everyone admired the web. And of course nobody noticed Charlotte … Nobody, of the hundreds of people that had visited the Fair, knew that a grey spider had played the most important part of all.”

("Hildegard of Bingen was one of the most Spirit-inspired mothers of the church. After keeping her visions to herself for decades, when she was forty-two Hildegard says that God told her to write what she had seen and heard: 'So now you must give others an intelligible account of what you see with your inner eye and what you hear with your inner ear. Your testimony will help them. As a result, others will learn how to know their Creator. They'll no longer refuse to adore God.'...")

“I am groot”. It’s a line from the movie, Guardians of the Galaxy. A cast of strange creatures from different places includes a being who looks like a tree, has branches for arms and says this one phrase over and over, in answer to any question, as a comment on any situation: “I am groot”. After many adventures, Groot saves them, at the cost of his own life. But Groot sends out a seed that grows into a little Groot who then goes on to the sequel.

["yesterday this is what I found on the sidewalk just in front of my house. Evidently, the two little girls who live next door have been at play in these first warm days of June. Look closely though. I played hopscotch when I was a girl. Only I know that none of my games included a place to 'rest.' (I did poke around Google Images and found that this is not as unusual as I first thought..."]

There was once a child who asked his mom, “Mom, where did I come from?” His mom took a deep breath and decided that this was the time to tell him about the “birds and the bees”. After she finished telling him what she thought was “enough information,” the child replied, “Awh, Mom, I already knew THAT stuff; I only asked because my new friend Sam says he comes from Vancouver. Where do I come from?” With children you sometimes need to know what their point of reference is!

Frederick Buechner writes, Using the same old materials of earth, air, fire, and water, every twenty-four hours God creates something new out of them. If you think you’re seeing the same show all over again seven times a week, you’re crazy. Every morning you wake up to something that in all eternity never was before and never will be again. And the you that wakes up was never the same before and will never be the same again, either. We come from a God who is constantly creative and is still making things new...

["a woman went on a trip with her husband to Connecticut and Rhode Island about eight weeks after a mastectomy. While there she suggested that they spend sometime by the ocean at Newport because there was something therapeutic about the ocean. She found that seeing the waves, walking in the sand, watching the tide, just experiencing the presence of the ocean that she felt more connected to nature, herself and the healing process..." and other quotes]

("Frederick Buechner writes, 'Using the same old materials of earth, air, fire and water, every twenty-four hours God creates something new out of them. If you think you're seeing the same show all over again seven times a week, you're crazy. Every morning you wake up to something that in all eternity never was before and never will be again. And the you that wakes up was never the same before and will never be the same again, either...")

The philosopher Calvin Trillin, in his book About Alice relates a story about his wife, whose name was Alice. She was volunteering at a camp for terminally ill children. In the course of the camp, Alice encountered a young girl who was severely disabled. Trillin recounts Alice's description of the young girl from their correspondence--she referred to her simply as L: Alice writes, 'She had two genetic diseases, one which kept her from growing and one which kept her from digesting any food...

Thomas Troeger, a Presbyterian pastor and gifted preacher, tells a story of an experience he had once. He wrote: “One day several years ago I was in a department store buying myself a new shirt when a complete stranger walked up to me and said, ‘You must be Henry Troeger's son.’ I looked at this person and I said, ‘I don't believe I have ever seen you.’ He said, ‘Oh, no, you have never met me at all, but a long time ago I worked with your father. I was a close colleague of his and when I saw you across the aisle of the store, I said to myself, `I'd know that face anywhere.' You are the very image of your father.’ For several weeks after that, I would sometimes be going down the street, and maybe come around a corner, and catch my reflection in a store window. [I started to see myself] with the eyes of someone else. It is not like looking into the mirror in the morning. I would come around the corner, catch that reflection and I would think, ‘That's Henry Troeger.’ All of a sudden I would be seeing how I bore the image of my father.”...

("I like to interpret the ancient poetry of Genesis with the help of the modern poet Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889). In his poem called God's Grandeur (1877), Hopkins considers the grace inherent in God's creation:...")

Catherine Marshall told about her friend, Marge, who boarded a plane bound for Cleveland. As they sat on the runway, waiting for takeoff at dusk, she noticed a strange phenomenon. Looking across the aisle, she could see through the distant windows a beautiful sunset that lit up the sky in wonderful orange and red colors—on that side of the plane. But, looking through the window beside her, she could see only darkness. As she reflected on that, she heard a voice from within. The voice said: "You have noticed the windows. Your life, too, will contain happy, beautiful times, but will also contain dark shadows. Here is a lesson I want to teach you to save you much heartache and to allow you to "abide in Me" with continual peace and joy. You see, it doesn't matter which window you look through; this plane is still going to Cleveland. So it is with your life. You have a choice. You can dwell on the gloomy picture. Or you can focus on the bright things and leave the dark, ominous situations to Me. I alone can handle them anyway. And the final destination is not influenced by what you see or feel along the way."...

It reminds me of one of the motifs in last year’s outstanding film The Tree of Life from director Terrence Malick. In the film we see again and again—at key turning points in the film—some kind of orange-ish/yellow-ish wisp of light hanging in space and surrounded by darkness. Not a few people have concluded this is Mallick’s depiction of God and, more specifically, of Christ as the light that shines in the darkness but without the darkness having overcome it (cf. John 1, a text that also brings us back to “In the beginning”).

("Some while back I read Stephen Ambrose's book Undaunted Courage that details the voyage westward of explorers Lewis and Clark. Again and again as they pushed west in the early 1800's, these two explorers and their comrades were stunned to see prairies literally black with herds of buffalo, the thunder of whose hoofbeats reverberated for miles...")

"in 2008, to mark the one-hundredth anniversary of the 1908 publication of Anne of Green Gables, Nova Scotian writer, Budge Wilson wrote a prequel to Anne of Green Gables which explained how the orphaned daughter of Walter and Bertha Shirley came to be sent to Avonlea, Prince Edward Island. It explained what her life was like as she was bounced from family to orphanage and how it was that she came to love classic romantic poetry..."

Father Lawrence Jenko is an American Roman Catholic priest who was held hostage in Beirut, Lebanon, for 564 days in the 1980's. He was secluded in various apartments and was most often chained blindfolded to a radiator. (In the Arab world, if you see your captors you must die.) When he was moved he was gagged with a dirty rag in his mouth, wrapped like a mummy, placed under the chassis of a truck, and driven around for an hour or two to a new location. Because of the constant blindfold, he never knew, when he was being touched, whether it was a touch of violence or a touch of compassion. In the beginning he was imprisoned alone, but later he was held with William Buckley, Ben Weir (a Presbyterian Minister), John Jacobson (a CNN reporter), and Terry Anderson. Both the heat and the cold were unbearable. There was torture and abuse. He was allowed to leave his cell once a day, to go to the bathroom, when his captors felt like it. Father Jenko said that he survived by repeating over and over several phrases. One is an old Jewish proverb: "When violence happens, first you cry, then you sing, and then you remain silent." He also said to himself during periods of torture, "I am a person of dignity. I am loved, I am worthy, and I do have a destiny." He also celebrated the Eucharist every day, even when all he had to offer was a small pile of dust from the floor. His guards were often cruel. Sometimes, however, they would ask if he needed anything. His little joke with them was, "only a little money for a taxicab to Damascus." One day, the cruelest of the guards slipped something into his pocket. Then once again he was bound, gagged, and blindfolded, driven two hours under a truck to the outskirts of Damascus, where he was dumped by the side of the road. When he finally freed himself, removed the blindfold and a gag, he found in his pocket enough money to take a taxicab to the center of the city...

Madeline L'Engle has a wonderful explanation of myth in her book The Irrational Season: 'Myth is the closest approximation to truth available to the finite human being. And the truth of myth is not limited by time or place...

("The way that myth is taught at Pacifica is that it is all the stories, of all human beings, of all time in their urge and desire to understand their relationship with the world. Myth is how we make sense of being. I love one particular interview of Joseph Campbell done by a young fellow...")

Now the fear of abandonment by God is the very condition that Jesus finds as he comes to the Jordan to be baptized by John. It is as though the people of God had sunk into a chaotic, formless void, lost, confused, blinded, without a mother to lead them, without a father to hold them. In the Jordan, God begins a new creation and the story begins again...

("The man whispered, 'God, speak to me' and a meadowlark sang. But the man did not hear. So the man yelled 'God, speak to me' and the thunder rolled across the sky. But the man did not listen...")

("In his inspirational view of matter and the universe The Universe Is A Green Dragon, physicist and author, Brian Swimme, imagines the story of creation being explained in the form of a classical dialogue between a famous cosmologist named Thomas and a young student...")

("In Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple, there is a wonderful scene where Celie, a battered and depressed woman, married to a brutal and sadistic husband, meets Shug Avery, a sultry, free-wheeling songstress...")

("Recently we read aloud portions of a song by Dar Williams called . Williams reflects on growing up with the social freedoms granted to boys, and how that freedom slipped away as she was pressed into female gender roles...")

("Wendell Johnson's poem Creation comes to mind. Listen to some of and catch the glory of it. 'And God stepped out on space, And God looked around and said: I'm lonely-- I'll make me a world. And far as the eye of God could see Darkness covered everything, Blacker than a hundred midnights Down in a cypress swamp...")

includes several quotes

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