{"id":24284,"date":"2024-10-15T09:43:52","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T13:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=24284"},"modified":"2024-10-15T10:43:24","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T14:43:24","slug":"24284","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=24284","title":{"rendered":"The First Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Larry Fleet - Where I Find God (Lyrics)(feat. Morgan Wallen)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/P55RPcxW9Tc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard considers what we can learn from the first Bible of nature:<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first act of divine revelation is creation itself. The first Bible is the Bible of nature. It was written at least 13.8 billion years ago, at the moment that we call the Big Bang, long before the Bible of words. \u201cEver since God created the world, God\u2019s everlasting power and divinity\u2014however invisible\u2014are there for the mind to see in the things that God has made\u201d (Romans 1:20). One really wonders how we missed that. Words gave us something to argue about, I guess, while nature can only be experienced, and hopefully enjoyed and respected with admiration and awe. <strong>Don\u2019t dare put the second Bible in the hands of people who have not sat lovingly at the feet of the first Bible. They will invariably manipulate, mangle, and murder the written text.<\/strong>&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The biblical account tells us God creates the world developmentally over six days, almost as if there was an ancient intuition of what we would eventually call evolution. Clearly creation happened over time. <strong>The only strict theological assertion of the Genesis story is that God started it all<\/strong>. The exact how, when, and where is not the author\u2019s concern<em>.<\/em>\u202fThis creation story, perhaps written five hundred years before Jesus Christ, <strong>has no intention or ability to be a scientific account. It is a truly inspired account of the source, meaning, and original goodness of creation.<\/strong> Thus, it is indeed \u201ctrue.\u201d Both Western rationalists and religious fundamentalists must <strong>stop confusing&nbsp;<em>true<\/em>&nbsp;with that which is literal, chronological, or visible to the narrow spectrum of the human eye.<\/strong> Many assume the Bible is an exact snapshot\u2014as if caught on camera\u2014of God\u2019s involvement on Earth. But if God needed such literalism, God would have waited for the 19th century of the Common Era to start talking and revealing through \u201cinfallible\u201d technology. [1]&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Science often affirms what were for centuries the highly suspect intuitions of the mystics. We now take it for granted that everything in the universe is deeply connected and linked, even light itself, which interestingly is the first act of creation (Genesis 1:3). Objects\u2014even galaxies!\u2014throughout the entire known universe are in orbits and cycle around something else. There\u2019s no such thing in the whole universe as autonomy. It doesn\u2019t exist. That\u2019s the illusion of the modern, individualistic West, which imagines the autonomous self to be the basic building block and the true Seer. [2]&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet all holy ones seem to say that t<strong>he independent self sees everything\u00a0<em>incorrectly<\/em>. <\/strong>Parts can only recognize parts and so split things even further. Whole people see things in their wholeness and thus create wholeness (\u201choliness\u201d) wherever they go and wherever they gaze. <strong>Holy people will find God in nature and everywhere else too. Heady people will only find God in books and words, and finally not even there.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>==================<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/app-link\/post?publication_id=254001&amp;post_id=149546456&amp;utm_source=post-email-title&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=5p0kg&amp;token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo5NTY1MjE2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNDk1NDY0NTYsImlhdCI6MTcyODIwOTAzMiwiZXhwIjoxNzMwODAxMDMyLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjU0MDAxIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.fA4ImAGXg1vRt2vJk1iGACzQ547jblAgqS9J1ojshRg\">Contemplation in the Desert<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@marklonghurst\">MARK LONGHURST<\/a> OCT 6<\/td><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@marklonghurst\"><\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td>&nbsp;<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/app-link\/post?publication_id=254001&amp;post_id=149546456&amp;utm_source=substack&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;submitLike=true&amp;token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo5NTY1MjE2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNDk1NDY0NTYsInJlYWN0aW9uIjoi4p2kIiwiaWF0IjoxNzI4MjA5MDMyLCJleHAiOjE3MzA4MDEwMzIsImlzcyI6InB1Yi0yNTQwMDEiLCJzdWIiOiJyZWFjdGlvbiJ9.g9rC7eAsE87bVSO7tf1d2TZfLsMBiEKNKgXx1ANcNY8&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=email-reaction&amp;r=5p0kg\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/app-link\/post?publication_id=254001&amp;post_id=149546456&amp;utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;comments=true&amp;token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo5NTY1MjE2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNDk1NDY0NTYsImlhdCI6MTcyODIwOTAzMiwiZXhwIjoxNzMwODAxMDMyLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjU0MDAxIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.fA4ImAGXg1vRt2vJk1iGACzQ547jblAgqS9J1ojshRg&amp;r=5p0kg&amp;utm_campaign=email-half-magic-comments&amp;action=post-comment&amp;utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/app-link\/post?publication_id=254001&amp;post_id=149546456&amp;utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=share&amp;utm_campaign=email-share&amp;action=share&amp;triggerShare=true&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=5p0kg&amp;token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo5NTY1MjE2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNDk1NDY0NTYsImlhdCI6MTcyODIwOTAzMiwiZXhwIjoxNzMwODAxMDMyLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjU0MDAxIiwic3ViIjoicG9zdC1yZWFjdGlvbiJ9.fA4ImAGXg1vRt2vJk1iGACzQ547jblAgqS9J1ojshRg\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.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.oIGPiBMWK1vWPW1nfhg9sLbXsVfIUTkwvgGyAgWpQMI?&amp;utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/open.substack.com\/pub\/marklonghurst\/p\/contemplation-in-the-desert?utm_source=email&amp;redirect=app-store&amp;utm_campaign=email-read-in-app\">READ IN APP<\/a><\/td><\/tr><tr><td>&nbsp;<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m no desert dweller. I love New Mexico\u2019s dry dirt, short trees, and adobe houses, but I wouldn\u2019t dare journey for days in the actual desert. When my wife and I first discussed moving to western Massachusetts, I asked, \u201cIs there an independent movie theater? Where\u2019s the nearest craft brewery?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The desert, however, is a rich and longstanding image in the Jewish and Christian traditions. Ancient Christian monks wandered to the most remote and craggy outposts they could find and set up camp. The<strong> barren landscape became a spiritual metaphor for the interior purification or \u201cletting go\u201d process needed to meet God.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ancient Israelites were a wilderness, nomadic people. They contemplated God in deserts, on mountaintops, on the margins, and on the move. Of course, the image of the promised land looms large in the Jewish imagination, but the desert persistently haunts the people as a symbol and harsh reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s the wilderness\u2014in Hebrew, the same word for desert,&nbsp;<em>midbar<\/em>\u2014that wields transformative, liberating power. The dramatic, mountain-quaking revelation at Sinai that Moses experiences is preceded by the people\u2019s escape from Egyptian slavery and time spent wandering in the desert. But before Moses leads the people in the archetypal freedom flight from Empire, he goes out to the desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He has fled Egypt, having murdered an Egyptian and taken refuge in a land called Midian. One day, Moses is keeping the flocks of his father-in-law, Jethro (Exodus 3:1). He leads his flock into the wilderness-desert and arrives at a mountain, where he stumbles across a burning bush and receives Yahweh\u2019s liberating call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His own divine desert encounter galvanizes his leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before the people arrive at Sinai, they, too, trek through the desert. But the desert is tough and impersonal. It does not care about people. It has its own identity and will. It does not bend easily to our desires, if at all. The<strong> desert is not only a stop on the way to the mountain or an unfortunate detour on the way to the promised land but also a destination itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/ba353296-ea5f-464f-bec4-60649cdea0ef?j=eyJ1IjoiNXAwa2cifQ.YAyL4V3QajRZWEa9RRzApx3T63xhnavEPaYBgWo1Y4g\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_386,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe2f425bd-681b-48a0-8d35-30f82c107071_1968x2164.jpeg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Photo by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/a6e6f9b4-63c9-41c9-9478-c072c556c993?j=eyJ1IjoiNXAwa2cifQ.YAyL4V3QajRZWEa9RRzApx3T63xhnavEPaYBgWo1Y4g\">Explore with Joshua<\/a>&nbsp;on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/redirect\/b25209c2-3de1-4c11-8c98-f7054ac960de?j=eyJ1IjoiNXAwa2cifQ.YAyL4V3QajRZWEa9RRzApx3T63xhnavEPaYBgWo1Y4g\">Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The ancient Israelites learn this lesson with great complaint. They cross the Red Sea, fleeing Pharaoh\u2019s chariots while divine power holds waves at bay. Once in the wilderness-desert, the people face hunger, thirst, and armed enemies. Newly liberated, they nevertheless romanticize their oppression. They start to pine for Egypt\u2019s full meals. They become thirsty. They protest Moses\u2019s leadership. \u201cWhy did you bring us out into the desert, to kill us?\u201d they ask (Exodus 16:3). God sends food from heaven for sustenance. God gives water that flows out of a rock struck by Moses. They run into other desert nomads, called Amalek, and are forced to fight to protect themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <strong>desert is the in-between space of testing, divine revelation, and transformation. It\u2019s the job loss and search, the dissolution of a marriage, the grief after a beloved\u2019s death. It\u2019s also the place to discover God\u2019s freedom and presence, <\/strong>from which a voice cries out, \u201cPrepare the way of the Lord\u201d (Mark 1:3). The story of Israel in the desert is also the story of the gospels, the way retread by Jesus. Once baptized and immersed in water, Jesus, too, is thrust into the wilderness-desert. Moses lingers at Mount Sinai for forty days and forty nights while, generations later, Jesus endures the desert and Satan\u2019s cross-examination for forty days and forty nights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once tested and proven true in the desert, Jesus\u00a0<em>returns\u00a0<\/em>to the desert. It\u2019s as if Jesus chooses the uncertain liminality of the desert to frame his life. Mark\u2019s gospel includes rich, brief lines that suggest <strong>Jesus\u2019s dedication to contemplation. They often simply read, \u201cJesus withdrew to a quiet place.<\/strong>\u201d Writers on silent prayer have often turned to these verses hoping that Jesus, too, values silence. But Jesus\u2019s embrace of silence is tied to landscape: the Greek word\u00a0<em>eremos\u00a0<\/em>means both a solitary\u00a0<em>and\u00a0<\/em>desert place (see Mark 6:31). <strong>When Jesus goes off to pray, he is not only stealing solitude, he is going to the desert.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The desert is the archetypal and literal place where we meet God, the place of fierce love. Deserts of loss, grief, pain, and literal sand <strong>strip down our pretensions, as if to say that preparing for God\u2019s way requires abandonment of all our<em>\u00a0<\/em>prior ways. <\/strong>The <strong>ways that we are in the world are all too often directed by addiction and a desire for more. The desert demands us to be emptied rather than filled, to show up and be tested, for divine fire to refine our desire, to face inner barrenness head-on, just as Jesus faces down the devil in the wilderness.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We are confronted with our naked self in the desert. There\u2019s no place for our pride, lust, anger, resentment, or need for approval to hide. No amount of posturing will shield us from the desert sun\u2019s unremitting glare. Its clarity may even stir us to long once again for the seemingly safe oppression of Egypt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Or the truth that the desert peels away may cause us to plunge headlong in love with God,<\/strong> to say with the poet of the Song of Songs, \u201cWho is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?\u201d (8:5)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The desert is a pliable metaphor for spaces of contemplation. While barren landscapes still hold transformative power, deserts are more populated these days. In a technological age, deserts are contested sites for cities, nuclear tests, oil drilling, and pipeline development. As Thomas Merton once wrote, \u201cWhen man and his money and machines move out in the desert and dwell there, not fighting the devil as Christ did, but believing in his promises of power and wealth . . . then the desert moves everywhere.\u201d <strong>Deserts symbolize the inner work of purgation and reality confrontation that would-be contemplatives must undergo\u00a0<em>wherever\u00a0<\/em>we find ourselves.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Father Richard considers what we can learn from the first Bible of nature:&nbsp; The first act of divine revelation is creation itself. The first Bible is the Bible of nature. It was written at least 13.8 billion years ago, at the moment that we call the Big Bang, long before the Bible of words. \u201cEver [&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\/24284"}],"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=24284"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24289,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24284\/revisions\/24289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}