The Beginning
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth…[1]
In the creation story most familiar to me, that of Genesis, God takes a single whole (the earth was a formless void) and divides it into parts. First was the division of light from dark (1:3). Next was the separation of the waters above from the waters below (1:6-7), followed by the parting of the waters below from the dry land (1:9). After this comes the creation of plants and animals from the divided materials of land, air, and water (1:11-25). Most forms of life were split into two parts, masculine and feminine. By splitting in two I mean to say the single reality of, say, light was divided into two expressions, light and dark, with dark being a variation of lesser light and not a separate state. Likewise, dry land is a state of lesser water, not the absence thereof. Regardless, in order to be fruitful and multiply (1:28), the two parts must unite again as one, which then produces offspring that appear separate again.
In Genesis 2, God creates man (humankind) as a single entity, or a single life form (2:7). This, according to the story, was not satisfactory in an otherwise divided environment (2:18,20), so God divided the human into two parts, too – man and woman (2:21-24). In order to clarify the telling of this aspect of creation, it is helpful to replace the word rib with side, which is the more accurate and logical translation – the human life form, like the rest of creation, was divided into male and female sides.
The important point is not the literal or metaphorical reading of this or any other creation narrative. The point is that our 3-dimensional, space-and-time existence began as a single whole that was progressively divided into distinct, but still interconnected parts. For reasons beyond our understanding, for life as we know it to manifest in its many earthly forms, the one had to be divided. Our basic human dilemma is believing we are one in and of ourselves – whole, complete, and independent. Our interrelatedness is inherent to our earthly existence, but we were created blind to it. All of our life challenges emerge from the primal, subconscious desire to be whole, to reattain the essential unity from which we were created. In the absence of that sense of Oneness, we feel alone, isolated, and insecure.
An important twist to the Genesis creation story occurs in the reference to the-fruit-of-the-tree-of-the-knowledge-of-good-and-evil (2:17), the eating of which causes mankind to die (2:17), but also causes mankind to become like God in knowing both good and evil (3:4). Good and evil, like the rest of divided creation, are not two different things, but a single whole, with evil being a state of lesser good. Our human condition is one of experiencing the divided states of good and evil, thus attaining detailed knowledge of the gradations of goodness through living the separated pieces.
Our 3-dimensional, time-and-space existence is rampant with perceptions of division, individuality, egoism, and interdependent parts behaving as if they stand alone. Our earthly experience is one of eating of the-fruit-of-the-tree-of-the-knowledge-of-good-and-evil in its endless variety of seductive pleasures and illusions. Ultimately, the knowledge of good and evil we gain in the divided world leads us back to the underlying Oneness of everything, which is what makes us like God. We cannot gain that knowledge, however, until we have reconstructed that Oneness through our daily experience of its apparent opposites.
Our experience is of life unfolding, but the overarching experience is of Life as a whole, as a single, unified reality instead of a seemingly unrelated series of random events. Our human experience is like the building of a house, where we go from building a foundation to walls to roof to interior finishing to the personal touches that make it a home. The absolute experience is of the finished home, which is inclusive of every detail of every phase of construction. We worry and fear and make all sorts of bad judgements because our view, wonderful as it may be at times, is incomplete.
In the context of eternity, there is no beginning or end to creation because it is a single reality unfolding in what we experience as time. Because we experience our lives in divided chunks, we identify with certain aspects of single realities and deny or condemn their related counterparts. When we reject any part of the whole, we deny and condemn the whole of the Love and Light we strive to attain.
This is the 37th in a series of Life Notes on Time and Eternity. The opinions expressed are mine. To engage with me or to explore contemplative spiritual direction, contact me at ghildenbrand@sunflower.com.
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[1] Genesis 1:1
Contemplating Grace 