Origin Story #4 of 21:

The earth was without form and void,

and darkness was upon the face of the deep;

and the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light. (Gn 1:2-3)

When God the Spirit stirred the chaotic waters of darkness, God the Father Almighty speaks into the darkness: “Let there be light, and there was light.” The formless universe begins to take shape. Four days of God’s attentive work forms a world fit for abundant life.

The first three days clear some space for life to flourish. Light is separated from darkness and given a name: “God called the light Day, and darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” Next, God “separated the waters from the waters… the waters above God called Heaven.” Then God clears some space within the waters below:

And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear."

And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

And God said, "Let the earth bring forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth."

And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a third day. (Gn 1:9-13)

With water ordered to its proper place, the earth is now empowered to “bring forth” all sorts of lush vegetation. The dark watery chaotic formlessness, over which the Spirit broods, is yielding to God’s speech. It’s being formed into a world that nourishes and sustains life.

The stage is set for abundant life. Or, almost set. God decides to populate the realms of day and night, that were created on the first day, with a sun to populate the day; and, a moon to populate the night. That’s one of our story’s odd things that I said we would owe up to. We were moving along nicely until this. Some say Christ himself was “the light of the world” before the fourth day. Or maybe, as some scholars suggest, it’s a way of demythologizing the Sun gods and goddesses (like the Egyptian Ra) and Moon gods and goddesses (like the Greek goddess Salena). As enchanting as these heavenly spheres are, they aren’t really gods, they are God’s handiwork—God’s gift.

For now, let’s just stick with our origin story as we have it and see how it goes. According to our story, God places these spheres in the sky “for signs and for seasons and for days and for years.” These heavenly spheres set in order our yearly rhythms of days and seasons: winter and summer, seedtime and harvest. They set in order as well our scared days and seasons to celebrate our Creator like Advent, Christmas and Easter. There’s still plenty of room for enchantment—in sunrises and sunsets, in moon lit nights. It’s the stuff of poetry and song.

So now, after that fourth day, everything is set for abundant life. That’s how our origin story goes. It’s not so different from David C’s “modern science origin story”. In his story, the one without a Creator, the Big Bang eventually forms into stars and galaxies that light up the dark void. It’s full of interesting scientific observations like the idea of “structured flows of energy” that causes me to think of our story. Here’s another example:

The spooky thing about life is that, though the inside of each cell looks like pandemonium—a sort of mud-wrestling contest involving a million molecules—whole cells give the impression of acting with purpose. Something inside each cell seems to drive it… (p. 76)

You can’t blame folks like me, who love the bible’s origin story, for seeing something of our story in David C’s Origin Story; can you?

Our Origin Story #3 of 21:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

That’s how our origin story begins: “In the beginning God created…”.  Our origin story is about God and about how God, out of his absolute freedom, decided to create something. Our Creator creates creation. It’s God’s idea. It’s God’s doing. Soon, our creation story will tell how God is pleased with it all. The Creator delights in his creation. It’s good. It’s very good.

However, it will take some ongoing work to bring his creation to a place of goodness and beauty: “In the beginning …the earth was formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep,” It will take some doing to make this chaos into something beautiful—a paradise fit for humans. For six days, God works to bring chaos into order, goodness and beauty. It’s creative work. Even God “rested on the seventh day from all the work he had done” (Gn 2:2). Each week we relive our creation story by working for six days and resting on the seventh. It’s a godly thing to do. Creation gives us our week. It parleys into our work week task of turning chaos into something orderly, good and beautiful.

The other origin story, the new one told by David C in his recent book Origin Story, begins with a Big Bang. That’s when some hot dense something smaller than an atom exploded spewing out all the matter that makes up our universe. This Explosion, that took place some thirteen billion years ago, continues its outward expansion to this day until it burns out into a cold, dark and lonely nothingness, 

The Big Bang reads like God speaking into the void and something exploding into being. What is more interesting, is how this chaotic Explosion took on order and structure—something fit for humans like us. David C. speaks of the odds with a parable:

If you throw a bomb into a construction site full of bricks, mortar, wires, and paint, what are the odds that when the dust clears, you’ll find an apartment building all wired up, decorated, and ready for buyers?

Even David C. seems tempted to bring in a creator god:

If our story had a creator god, explaining structure would be easy. We could just assume that God preferred structure to chaos. But most versions of the modern origin story no longer accept the idea of a creator god because modern science can find no direct evidence for a god. (p. 25)

We need not be gleeful here—as if science has found a slot for God. It’s to David Cs credit, that he acknowledges these gaps in the “modern science origin story”.  I’ll try to be as honest about problems in our own story—like the sun and moon showing up on the fourth day, for example.

For now, I delight in both stories. They have a way of playing off one another. Both tell the story of this movement from chaos to order. I might object to David C. thinking it easy for a god to turn chaos into order. Our creation story tells us it wasn’t easy. It took work. Our story doesn’t end with the universe drifting off into cold dark nothingness. In our story, the Creator sticks with his creation redeeming it and renewing it.  This story of creation’s redemption won’t be easy either. It has to do with Calvary.  

Our Origin Story #2 of 21:

All things have been created through Christ and for Christ…

And in Christ all things hold together. (Col 1:16-17)

When we read our creation story we can’t help but see it through the eyes of Christmas (God entering into his creation), Good Friday (God suffering for his creation), and Easter morning (God resurrecting his creation). As the hymn goes:

This is my Father’s world …let the earth be glad.

For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.

No place but is holy ground.

We did not form our origin story from scientific investigation. We come to it “by faith”. How it is that we have found ourselves in Christ is something of a mystery. Each one of us has our own story. Somehow, “God’s Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Ro 8:16). Christmas, Good Friday and Easter Morning have a way of reminding us of the wonder of our faith.

We come to our creation story from a different place than Christian (the author of Origin Story, let’s call him David C. from now on). For David C., there is no room for such faith. His creation story will not allow for a “creator god”. His is an origin story formed by “modern science” alone. No other voice is allowed.

Seems to me, our creation story allows for greater tolerance. Our faith does not restrict us. It frees us. There is ample room in our creation story for all sorts of science. Notice how King Solomon goes about his scientific work:

He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon

to the hyssop that grows out of the wall;

he spoke also of beasts, and of birds,

and of reptiles, and of fish. (1K 4:33)

Solomon supports the arts as well:

He also uttered three thousand proverbs;

and his songs were a thousand and five.

One of his lengthier proverbs speaks, in an artful way, of the value of scientific investigation (Pr 6):

            Go to the ant, consider her ways, and become wise!

            Without having a boss, or anyone telling her what to do;

            The ant gathers her food in summer,

            And stores it up during harvest time.

And songs… the Bible chose to include the best of the thousand and five (SofS 1:2):

O that you would kiss me

with the kisses of your mouth!

For your love is better than wine,

Science and Art… that’s part of the bible story too. There is something real and wonderful about creation that is worthy of our investigation (science) and wonderment (art). There is, at least to my lights, good science in David C’s origin story; but, it lacks art. Maybe art is a threat to a “modern science origin story”. Art would risk opening the door to something transcendent—something bigger than the material world. So the “modern science origin story” keeps things bound to scientific inquiry alone. It’s intolerant of other possibilities. It lacks poetry and song.

Our Origin Story #1 of 21:

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God. (Hb 11:3)

Jimmy Cowart graced us with a visit yesterday morning. Something about his sabbatical year brought him to the West coast and to our home. We sat out on the patio for a few hours. He wanted to talk science and faith. So we did. It’s something he intends to give attention to during his sabbatical.

Jimmy’s interest in science and faith didn’t come from any spiritual struggle. As if he felt his faith in Christ to be threatened by science. Jim is secure in his faith. But out of his faith, he wonders if we can’t get these two worlds of faith and science to get along—to talk to each other and respect each other. How could that happen? Where would we begin? I think it has something to do with both science and religion being faithful to their own stories. We wouldn’t want science to pretend that it is religious; nor, would we want religion to pretend like it is science. By faith we believe in our Creator. “Creator”, “creation” and “creature” are religious terms. They are words of faith, hope and love. Science doesn’t use words like “creation”.

In conversation with David Christian’s recent book Origin Story (2018), I would like to work on our Christian origin story as revealed to us in the Bible. David Christian, his name not his faith, believes a) we need an origin story, b) the biblical story is no longer believable; and thus, c) we need a new origin story generated not by religion, but by scientific inquiry. Such scientific inquiry cannot speak of a Creator “because,” as Christian insist, “modern science can find no direct evidence for god” (p. 25). Maybe “direct evidence” is hard to come by. There’s something elusive about God. Yet, the universe certainly gives us clues that there just might be an Almighty God who created the heavens and the earth. Is it fair for science to rule out such possibilities?

So, bit by bit, morning by morning, I would like to give renewed attention of our story of creation as revealed to us in Holy Scripture. It’s our faith seeking understanding. A good place to start. As Christian points out, our origin story has a way of forming who we are and how we understand our place in the universe. Our Genesis story is really good at that.

High School Football & Tearing-Up

Why did I tear-up last night at Amador’s football game? Jen noticed, “What’s wrong dad?” I blurted out something about how these strange emotions sneak up on me. It’s hard to explain. Maybe it was cumulative. The week before we were at Foothill’s Senior Night with parents and grandparents. Now again, Senior Night, this time with Alex’s parents and grandparent. We haven’t been to an Amador High School Football game in years and years—since 1994 when Jeremiah crowned his successor Home Coming King. Or, maybe we attend a few games sprinkled in there between now and then. I don’t recall any tears.

It is hard to explain, but I would like to take a shot at it. It happened, that tearing up thing, before kick-off when the band was playing and the students cheering, and the players jumping up a down eager to begin the big game. It was a perfect Friday night under-the-lights football spectacle. The stadium more than packed for this cross-town rivalry. It’s the same spectacle my father enjoyed in the early nineteenth century when Stockton High played Lodi High School. The same when Gary and I played (Gary played, I suited up) for the big game between Santa Rosa High School and Montgomery High. The same as when we attended Friday night games with our High School age children during the late 80s and early 90s. And, there I was, 25 years later, on Senior Night watching Ron with his daughter and son-in-law walk the field before the game to honor their senior son/grandson.

How many traditions remain intact for over a hundred years? And football… you would think The Enlightened would put a stop to it. There must be something wrong with such civic fun. Isn’t there something sexist about those cheerleaders? And, certainly football is a violent game—too dangerous. Kids get hurt. How do they let us get away with it? Maybe that’s why I teared-up. We got away with it. And it was so much fun.

I suppose there’s more to it. There’s always more—like age perhaps. We get nostalgic. When we were young parents, watching our children play, we didn’t realize how beautiful a Friday night football game could be. Now, we take it in with wonder and gratitude. In spite of our troubled and conflicted world, there remains something precious about God’s beautiful green earth. Maybe, if the Lord allows us to stick around, we will walk that beautiful green field one Senior Night with one of our grandchildren. Wouldn’t that be something?

Back Home from Pat Conroy’s Lowcountry:

I sent Jeremiah his prize from Beaufort, South Carolina: A Lowcountry Heart. It’s a book of reflections by Pat Conroy and others collected after his death in 2016. Jeremiah won the prize by properly identifying that Beaufort picture I sent you, as the house in The Great Santini.

Towards the end of A Lowcountry Heart we read “A Letter to My Grandson on Sportsmanship and Basketball.”  It’s basketball that connects Jeremiah to Conroy from The Great Santini to My Losing Season. “The Citadel,” Conroy says addressing the graduating class of 2001, “gave me one of the greatest gifts of my life—it allowed me to be a college basketball player, to represent my college from the hills of West Virginia to the banks of the Mississippi to the night lights of New Orleans.” That’s pretty much our road trip with the Sjodahls.

Conroy’s kind of sentimentalism is expressed in the title “A Lowcountry Heart”. He has a big heart for the lowcountry and for its people. During our road trip we viewed the tidal marshes of South Carolina that filled him with wonder, awe and love—love for the land and love for the many sorted people he engaged there. That’s the stuff of great stories—especially bible stories like the story of Judah and Tamar: “It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and settled near a certain Adulamite whose name was Hirah.” The “it” that “happened” when Judah “settled” in a certain place, is deeply tangled, troubled and problematic. It ends with a surprise: “She is more righteous than I.” Conroy’s stories are like that. All good stories are like that.

Yet, the Gospel Story is more than sentiment. It’s the story about God’s big troubling yet glorious decision about us. It’s the story about what happened when “Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Lk 9:51). Calvary moves us to love people—to have a big heart towards people and places.

Children and Children’s Children:

Grandchildren are the crown of the aged,

and the glory of children is their parents. (Pr 17:6)

          Let your father and mother be glad;

let her who bore you rejoice. (Pr 23:25)

Our church celebrated its 50^th year anniversary last weekend—a weekend full of festivities. Our children were raised in the church. From Austin, TX and San Diego, CA our children, along with a few of their children, rendezvous for the event. Our home was full of life like days of old.

Our daughter Rachel insisted on this blog so I could pass on some morning fire pit mussing to our children and our children’s children. It’s been spotty. I’ll keep at it.

For now, Linda and I just want to acknowledge how proud our children and our children’s children made us at the 50^th Anniversary celebration. I don’t know about the second line of the proverb—about the children seeing something good about their parents. But, we know for sure about the first line: “Grandchildren are the crown of the aged” (Pr 17:6). And, that our children and children’s children bring us deep “gladness” (Pr 23:25).