{"id":18260,"date":"2019-09-02T09:50:19","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T13:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18260"},"modified":"2019-09-02T09:50:19","modified_gmt":"2019-09-02T13:50:19","slug":"18260","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18260","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Cosmology: Part Two<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Participating in God<\/strong><br>Sunday, September 1, 2019<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U25fyuQvfqk\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>From the beginning until now, the entire creation as we know it has been groaning in one great act of giving birth.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014Romans 8:22<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just this one line from Paul should be enough to justify evolution. God creates things that create themselves! Wouldn\u2019t this be the greatest way that God could create\u2014to give autonomy, freedom, and grace to keep self-creating even further? Healthy parents love their children so much that they want them to keep growing to their highest potential, even surpassing their parents. As Jesus said to his disciples, \u201cDon\u2019t get too excited about the things that I did. You\u2019re going to do even greater things!\u201d (John 14:12).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a long time, many people were satisfied with a very static universe. But now we clearly see the universe is unfolding and expanding. It\u2019s moving until, as Augustine (354\u2013430) put it, \u201cIn the end there will only be Christ loving himself,\u201d [1] or as Paul wrote, \u201cThere is only Christ, he is everything and he is in everything\u201d (Colossians 3:11). Paul saw history as an ongoing process of ever greater inclusion of every lesser force until in the end, \u201cGod will be all in all\u201d (1 Corinthians 15:28). Christ is the Christian word for the One reality that includes everything and excludes nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Franciscan scientist Sr. Ilia Delio writes about this cosmology as participatory movement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>Evolution impels us to think of God as drawing the world from up ahead, attracting it into a new future. Process theology maintains that God is neither simply an impersonal order nor simply the individual person who creates the universe. Rather, God and world are in process together; the world continually participates in God and God in the world. God, who is the primordial ground of order, embodies within Godself the order of possibilities, the potential forms of relationship that are not chaotic but orderly even before they are actualized. Nothing less than a transcendent force, radically distinct from matter but also incarnate in it, could ultimately explain evolution. . . . God is distinct from the world yet essential to it, just as the world is essential to God. Apart from God there would be nothing new in the world and no order in the world. God <strong>influences the world without determining it.<\/strong> This influence is the lure of ideals to be actualized, the persuasive vision of the good; it contributes to the self creation of each entity. . . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>Evolution brings with it the rise of consciousness, and as consciousness rises, so too does awareness of God. The human person is created to see God in every aspect of life, charged with divine energy, and to love what he or she sees. In this respect scripture is written daily in the supermarkets, nursing homes, playgrounds, post offices, cafes, bars, and in the scripts of home and community life. God is not hovering over us; God is the amazing depth, breadth, imagination, and creativity in culture, art, music, poetry, science, literature, film, gyms, and parks\u2014all in some way speak the word of God. <strong>Every place is the place to find God, and God is in everything.<\/strong> [2]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/a-new-consciousness-2019-09-02\/\"><strong>A New Consciousness<\/strong><\/a><br><strong>Monday, September 2, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.<\/em>&nbsp;<em>The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory, full of grace and truth. . . . From his fullness, we have all received, grace upon grace.&nbsp;<\/em>\u2014John 1:1-3, 14, 16<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>God\u2019s plan and presence\u2014the Christ\u2014has been with us since the beginning of the universe. In Jesus, the <strong>blueprint<\/strong> materialized and became visible, showing us the way toward wholeness. The Greek word John uses for \u201cfullness\u201d is\u00a0<\/em>pleroma<em>. Paul uses the very same word in several places and clearly teaches that \u201cYou have a share in this fullness\u201d (Colossians 2:9) and even \u201cYou are filled with the utter fullness of God\u201d (Ephesians 3:19). Talk about inherent dignity and empowerment!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Ilia Delio continues reflecting on what this means for us and maturing Christianity:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Evolution invites us to expand our consciousness of the divine mystery beyond the realm of human history and to see humankind [and all of creation] within the process of an evolving cosmic history. We come from the whole and belong to the whole. As church, as theologians, as citizens of the universe, therefore, we need an \u201coption for whole,\u201d and by this I mean we need a new consciousness that includes our Big Bang expanding universe and biological evolution as part of our intellectual search for truth. <strong>Theology must\u00a0<\/strong><em><strong>begin with evolution<\/strong><\/em><strong>\u00a0if it is to talk of a\u00a0<\/strong><em><strong>living<\/strong><\/em><strong>\u00a0God,<\/strong> and hence it must include physical, spiritual, and psychological change as fundamental to reality. Einstein\u2019s discovery of relativity means that space-time is a dimension of the unfinished, expanding universe; thus, whatever we say about God is bound up with the universe. By extending the knowing process into the furthest realms of cosmic relatedness, being acquires new depth. Knowledge cannot be satisfied with human history alone; it must reach into cosmic history, if it is in search of truth. To see evolution as revelatory of the divine Word means that we come to see the various forms and rhythms of nature as reflective of divine qualities. This means moving beyond the static images of God that are so familiar to us and that remain irretrievably tied to an archaic understanding of the cosmos. We are invited, through modern science, to widen our theological vision, to awaken to a dynamic cosmos in which we are deeply related, and to seek the divine Word expressing itself in the rich fecundity of cosmic life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Summary: Week Thirty-five<\/strong><\/em><em>August 25&nbsp;&#8211; August 30, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em><strong>Summary: Week Thirty-five<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Religious thinkers . . . are searching for a new synthesis of science and faith, a new cosmology, and a \u201cnew story.\u201d&nbsp;<\/em>\u2014Denis Edwards (<a href=\"https:\/\/email.cac.org\/t\/d-l-xlhutul-yhltihduht-r\/\">Sunday<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that we are coming to understand the magnificent nature of the cosmos, we\u2019re finding that many of the intuitions of mystics of all religions are paralleled by scientific theories and explanations. (<a href=\"https:\/\/email.cac.org\/t\/d-l-xlhutul-yhltihduht-y\/\">Monday<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Indigenous societies include science and theology and all other aspects of their culture as a part of their ordinary discourse, for the sciences have never been alienated from daily life.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014Barbara Holmes (<a href=\"https:\/\/email.cac.org\/t\/d-l-xlhutul-yhltihduht-j\/\">Tuesday<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If string theory is right, the microscopic fabric of our universe is a richly intertwined multidimensional labyrinth within which the strings of the universe endlessly twist and vibrate, rhythmically beating out the lawns of the cosmos.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014Brian Greene (<a href=\"https:\/\/email.cac.org\/t\/d-l-xlhutul-yhltihduht-t\/\">Wednesday<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In North America, cosmology played an important part in slave escapes to freedom. They knew that freedom was north and they knew that the North Star (Polaris) could guide their feet.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014Barbara Holmes (<a href=\"https:\/\/email.cac.org\/t\/d-l-xlhutul-yhltihduht-i\/\">Thursday<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>My heart tells me that the new physics is not new at all, but simply expresses in yet another way the fundamental truth that underpins creation.<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014Judy Cannato (<a href=\"https:\/\/email.cac.org\/t\/d-l-xlhutul-yhltihduht-d\/\">Friday<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Practice:&nbsp;<strong>Contemplating the Cosmos<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Bible scholar J. B. Phillips wrote a book many years ago entitled&nbsp;<em>Your God Is Too Small<\/em>. I believe that many of the world\u2019s religious, political, and cultural divisions happen because our view is too narrow. For Christians, it\u2019s important to realize that Christ is so much bigger and more inclusive than we\u2019ve envisioned. Christ is universal and beyond time, indwelling all creation, anointing all matter with Spirit. Because of this, Christ\u2019s people aren\u2019t just Christians or some select group. Christ is too big to be encompassed or enclosed by any organization. If there\u2019s going to be any hope for this world, we\u2019ve got to start seeing God and Christ on this much bigger scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Too many Christians think that God only started interacting with humans 6,000 years ago. That\u2019s unthinkable to me! Creation has existed for billions of years. My Franciscan tradition says that creation was the first Bible. Everything we need to know about God was revealed in creation from the beginning: \u201cFor in Christ all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers\u2014all things have been created through him and for him. Christ is before all things, and in Christ all things hold together\u201d (Colossians 1:16-17).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For today\u2019s practice I invite you to meditate on our unfathomably vast, primordial, and complex cosmos.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/email.cac.org\/t\/d-l-xlhutul-yhltihduht-h\/\">Set aside an hour to watch beautiful images caught by the Hubble Telescope and learn about our \u201cUniverse in Motion.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Exploring the universe inspires us to consider\u2014a word whose Latin roots&nbsp;<em>cum&nbsp;<\/em>(with) and&nbsp;<em>sidera&nbsp;<\/em>(stars) literally mean&nbsp;<em>with the stars<\/em>\u2014a theology of cosmic praxis. Theologian Denis Edwards writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p>The concept of praxis . . . refers to our participation in the shaping of the world in which we live. It is based upon the idea that we are meant to make a difference. We are called to be contributors, people of reflection and action. . . . This is our common human task. It is our call to be participators in God\u2019s continuous creation. [1]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>After considering the remarkable vision of a dynamic universe, read aloud the following litany.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>God, You work . . .<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>in the accelerating expansion of the universe<br>in the spiraling of galaxies<br>in the explosion of supernovas<br>in the singularity of black holes<br>in the regularity of the Solar System<br>in the equilibrium of the Earth\u2019s ecology<br>in the evolving of a society<br>. . .<br>in the functioning of our organs<br>in the chemical processes within our bodies<br>in the forces within the atom<br>in the \u201cweird\u201d behavior of quantum particles<br>. . .&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>May I sit in wonder that I live entirely within Your Presence everywhere and in everything and everyone.&nbsp;<\/em>[2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cosmology: Part Two Participating in GodSunday, September 1, 2019 From the beginning until now, the entire creation as we know it has been groaning in one great act of giving birth.&nbsp;\u2014Romans 8:22 Just this one line from Paul should be enough to justify evolution. God creates things that create themselves! Wouldn\u2019t this be the greatest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18260"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18261,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18260\/revisions\/18261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}