In the beginning God was a deep current of tightly folded language. God the code – acorn of infinity.
Then God in God’s non-existence retracted; emptied words from a moment of coherence and something other than God filled the opening. Continues filling. Unravels to this day. We sense the syntax; a structure like logic, but clearer. A clarity only math can approximate. It is distance and movement and paradox; a long gush of death spilling fresh elements and levels of complexity. God being born. Suns birthed in water-soaked nursery clouds and gassy nova deaths full of candle flames. Finally, on earth, humans, several steps up from the goo, look around and see. It’s all really there. The universe comprehending itself in 1400 grams of fatty neurons. Within the convoluted folds, 100 trillion connections*. Brain as mirror for emergence. Understanding in a transient species. Reality awake.
In the dark, on a cold December evening, I study the sky; feel the emptiness within me, the God hole, odd echo of the lingo before existence. Tongues of the God void pierce me. Seem to pierce all of existence. Divinity is humble, humble unto death. God the post-natural. A stubborn passivity; the release of all intention. El becomes Un. Stepping back and stepping back and stepping back again. No hands, devoid of grasping, all arrows point towards a self-moving existence. The only constant in the universe: everything changes.
God is silent as writing, curls of cipher on a dancers dress. Within the beyond the universe started. Out of absence came presence. Even the great voids between stars crammed with space. Wrapped in that original wave – everything, even the future. From the future God calls, a paradoxical echo from the deep past. Story drawn forward to some unknown attraction. Data points spill onto a curve we call memory.
One species we know of can transcend and include. Made of mystics and scientists and taxi drivers. And sociopaths and pedophiles. Through Jesus and Buddha and Stalin and Hitler. Evolution is the result of millions of fits and misfits. Even sin and evil now our brothers. Tribes and corporations and mountain monasteries – all imperfect leaves on the Larger Self. The next species, perhaps the one we create, will transform theology to biography.
At the end of time The tree of Reality will fruit. That tree now increasing, layer upon layer of pure information, our essence remembered down to growth rings. The universe will eventually only be a memory in the Trunk’s brain stem; and something we can not taste yet, way out there on the tip of God’s tongue.
*100 Trillion Connections: New Efforts Probe and Map the Brain’s Detailed Architecture By Carl Zimmer, Scientific American, December 29, 2010
Still In The Stream 
Richard – Great to see you in the blogosphere. You have so much to offer. Your take on how to include the existence of evil in an evolutionary worldview is both profound and poetic. I remember in the Joseph Campbell Power of Myth series, Bill Moyers asked Joseph about the binary of good and evil, and he just smiled and spoke of the whole beyond judgment as “sublime.” You wrote of this, but with more possibility for others to see into this view when you wrote: “One species we know of can transcend and include. Made of mystics and scientists and taxi drivers. And sociopaths and pedophiles. Through Jesus and Buddha and Stalin and Hitler. Evolution is the result of millions of fits and misfits. Even sin and evil now our brothers. Tribes and corporations and mountain monasteries – all imperfect leaves on the Larger Self.”
LikeLike
Thanks Connie,
I appreciate the comment and encouragement. It strikes me that taking evolution seriously and “laying aside childish things,” has only begun for me and for many others I’m sure. I look forward to a kind of theology that grapples with these old ethical chestnuts, but expansive and creative, with the threads of imperfection, future insight, and universe scope.
You and Michael are playing such a crucial role in moving this forward.
God bless you, 🙂
Richard
LikeLike