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    Then God Said: Contemplating the First Revelation in Creation
    Then God Said: Contemplating the First Revelation in Creation
    Then God Said: Contemplating the First Revelation in Creation
    Ebook126 pages1 hour

    Then God Said: Contemplating the First Revelation in Creation

    By Susan Muto

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    Then God Said teaches us to open our eyes and behold the gifts of creation that unfold before us in all their splendor. We abide in awe before the generative forces of the universe. We delight in the splendor of created things and thank God for this outpouring of gifts from the beginning of time. Each chapter of Then God Said invites us to contemplate the first revelation in creation--from water and sky to cattle and creeping things. We ponder, page by page, the power of the Father, the presence of the Son, and the productivity of the Holy Spirit. We behold anew the majesty of this planet and the merciful dispensation of the Divine under which we live day by day. We celebrate the beauty of the earth and the sheer majesty of each minute trace of the transcendent. Readers are encouraged to find the footprints of love that move the sun, the moon, and all the stars. Creation not only reminds us of God's glory; it offers us a sacramental understanding of all that we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell, thereby increasing our ecological sensitivity and our commitment to foster respectful stewardship over all that we survey.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWipf and Stock
    Release dateJul 21, 2014
    ISBN9781630873592
    Then God Said: Contemplating the First Revelation in Creation
    Author

    Susan Muto

    Susan Muto, executive director of the Epiphany Association, is a renowned speaker, author, teacher, and dean of the Epiphany Academy of Formative Spirituality. Muto earned a master’s degree and a doctorate in English literature from the University of Pittsburgh, where she specialized in the work of post-Reformation spiritual writers. Beginning in 1966, she served in administrative positions at the Institute of Formative Spirituality at Duquesne University and taught as a full professor in its programs, edited its journals, and served as its director from 1981 to 1988. An expert in literature and spirituality, she continues to teach courses on an adjunct basis at a number of schools, seminaries, and centers of higher learning. Muto is a frequent contributor to scholarly and popular journals such as Mount Carmel and Spiritual Life Magazine, and served as editor of Epiphany’s online journals and courses, including Growing in, with, and through Christ. She is the author of more than thirty books, among them Twelve Little Ways to Transform Your Heart and the award-winning Gratefulness. She is the coauthor—with Rev. Adrian van Kaam, C.S.Sp. (1920-2007)—of more than forty books, including Commitment: Key to Christian Maturity, and The Power of Appreciation. Muto lectures and leads conferences, seminars, workshops, and institutes nationally and internationally. She has received many distinctions for her work, including a doctor of humanities degree from King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She was honored in 2009 with a lifetime achievement award by the Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. Muto also was the recipient of the 2014 Aggiornamento Award presented of the Catholic Library Association. She lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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      Book preview

      Then God Said - Susan Muto

      9781625649010.kindle.jpg

      Then God Said

      Contemplating the First Revelation in Creation

      Susan Muto

      9305.png

      Then God Said

      Contemplating the First Revelation in Creation

      Copyright © 2014 Susan Muto. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Wipf and Stock

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      ISBN 13: 978-1-62564-901-0

      eISBN 13: 978-1-63087-359-2

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of Heaven and Earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things . . . indeed he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being . . . (Acts 17:24–28).

      Prologue

      Inspiring the title of this book is the account of the six days of creation recorded at the beginning of the Book of Genesis. In these verses we contemplate the first revelation of God in Creation. We humans only came into being after a veritable avalanche of animate and inanimate creatures from first light and first night, to water and sky, land and every fruit-bearing plant and seed, to swarms of birds and animals populating the earth, to cattle and creeping things. And God saw that all of it was good. It was to be our duty as males and females created in his likeness to be the caretakers of this lush garden, to work and rest with God. Alas, prideful disobedience multiplied thorns and thistles (Gen 3:18); death entered the Garden of Eden, and with it shame and sin. But, to this day, when any of us feel distraught and distressed, we are likely to take a stroll along a shaded path or a walk by the sea, contemplating again the glory of the first revelation in creation and wondering, in a steel and cement world, why we do not do so more often.

      Every epiphany of the mystery—human (you and I), cosmic (elemental), and trans-cosmic (divine)—connotes images and symbols illumined for us in and through this initial revelation. All three manifestations of the transcendent heighten our perception of the immense variety of forms and formations God uses to disclose the power of the Father, the presence of the Son, and the productivity of the Holy Spirit. My hope is that this book will serve as a wake-up call, alerting readers in all walks of life, from poets to entrepreneurs, to the majesty of this planet and to the merciful dispensation of the Divine under which we live from day to day.

      Throughout history Christian believers and sincere seekers have turned to holy books, notably the Bible, to find validation for the link between what their senses behold and the hand that crafted the stars and calls them all by name (Ps 148:3). The masters tell us that the more we enjoy these epiphanic splendors, the more we come to know the Divine Giver who lavished them upon us. Thanks to the beauty we behold on earth and the sheer majesty of the universe beamed to us from the marvels of telescopic ingenuity, we find footprints of the love that moves the sun, the moon, and all the stars, as the poet Dante said of paradise. For mere mortals, what we see goes beyond speech and thought, and we are left stammering in ah! Still attempted articulations never cease.

      For example, Hildegaard of Bingen (1098–1179) insists in her prose and poetry that all creatures mirror God in some manner. Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (1611–1691), from whom we derive so many teachings on the practice of the presence of God, says that what launched his spiritual journey was a meditation on the wonder of a tree in winter. John Calvin (1509–1564), the great Protestant reformer from Switzerland, reminds us that there is no spot in the universe that does not overwhelm us with a spark of God’s glory. As we read in Psalm 19:1, The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Who could miss the great celebration of creation penned by Sirach (24:13–14) to tell us what our Creator is like? We need not look far to find the I am power of the self-communicating mystery: I grew tall like a cedar in Lebanon, and like a cypress on the heights of Hermon. I grew tall like a palm tree in Engedi, and like rosebushes in Jericho; like a fair olive tree in the field, and like a plain tree growing beside water.

      Returning to medieval times, Hugh of St. Victor (+1142) called creation the looking glass of God on which we ought to meditate day and night. Not only did Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) heed this advice; he took it a step further and in his Canticle of the Sun embraced all facets of creation as his brothers and sisters. His successor, Bonaventure (1221–1274), in his treatise on the journey of the mind to God (1259), writes that anyone not enlightened by the splendor of created things must be blind. He says, . . . open your eyes, alert the ears of your spirit, open your lips and apply your heart so that in all creatures you may see, hear, praise, love and worship, glorify and honor your God . . . In the same vein, the Book of Wisdom (1:14) says: For he created all things so that they might exist; the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is not a destructive poison in them . . .

      Creation not only reminds us of God’s glory; it offers us a sacramental understanding of earth, air, fire, and water, of all the elements in nature and culture. These gifts that unroll without price at our feet delight the eye. They are not God, but they are valued by us as God’s creation deserving of our love and respect. When the English poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson (1850–1892) saw a flower in a crannied wall, he almost swooned in wonder. Reading in awe the book of nature heightened his sensitivity to the truth that . . . every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change (Jas 1:17).

      Contact with nature—on a scale as small as a dandelion peeking through a crack in the sidewalk or as gigantic as the Grand Canyon seen for the first time—restores our faded, jaded outlook on life; imparts peace to an agitated mind; and reconfirms the awesome splendor of beauty and order, destined, as the Bible says, to glorify God, the author of all that delights our eyes and ears, our senses of smell, taste and touch. The next time we behold the first blooms of spring, inhale the air heavy with the scent of lilacs, or bite into a perfectly ripe crunchy

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