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“God has let us in on a mystery: the mystery of his purpose, the hidden plan he so kindly made from the very beginning in Christ” (Ephesians 1:9-10). Whenever Paul says “in Christ,” he is not talking about Jesus of Nazareth. He’s talking about when matter and spirit come together, reveal and expose one another. Jesus is the concrete personification in time of what has always been true, which is the Christ Mystery, or the “anointing” of matter with eternal purpose. This hidden plan will become apparent when time has run its course, when we can finally see that “there is only Christ, he is everything and he is in everything” (Colossians 3:11). How were we able to miss such passages as this? (We only see what we are told to pay attention to.)
What we call “salvation” is happening to the whole of creation and not just to humans (Revelation 21:1). Our inability to recognize and appreciate this is a central example of our dualistic thinking and even our narcissism. Why would God’s great plan just be about us? The irony, of course, is that we are—by far—the most destructive species on the planet, and refuse to take our proper place in the entire “family of things,” as Mary Oliver calls it.
The very fact that Christians have fought the notion of evolution shows we did not minimally understand the Cosmic Christ. We should have been the first to recognize and honor evolution: the glory, patience, and humility of God is that God creates things that continue to create themselves—from the inner dynamism God has planted within them. Many of us would call this inner creative dynamism the Holy Spirit which “hovers over the initial chaos” (Genesis 1:2) and then stands at the end of history with a constant and beckoning “Come!” (Revelation 22:17). These two verses are the very bookends of the Bible.
Adapted from
Soul Centering through Nature: Becoming a True Human Adult,
disc 2 (CD,
DVD,
MP3 download)
Gateway to Silence:
God is all in all
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