In the Beginning . . .

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“In the beginning….”

What inviting words with which to begin a text that is to serve as an explanation and guide for a life and a religion!

The human mind is naturally drawn to beginnings, with an urge to trace things back, and back, and back—to try to get to the root. There’s a sense that if you know the beginning of something, then you know what it is, and where it might be headed, and how you might deal with it. You have ground upon which to stand.

There’s just one problem with this invitation to trace things back to the beginning: you never really get there. You will always be able to ask yet another question of beginnings: “And what preceded that beginning?” Thus, the search for beginnings leads to an infinite regress. After proceeding a long way down the road to the beginning of our cosmos you may say, “Ah, here, finally, is where time and space began! Here is the zero point! Here is where our universe begins!”

But then the troubling question, if you allow yourself to ask it: “But what preceded that? What were the conditions out of which time and space emerged? What reality preceded our universe? What was the nature of being before the Big Bang?”

You have perhaps heard the humorous story of cosmological beginnings in which the earth is understood to be a flat, circular disc resting on pillars. The inquiring mind naturally pursues deeper:

“But, pray tell, what are the pillars resting on?” “Why, the pillars rest on large stones.” “I see. And upon what do the large stones rest?” “Well, the large stones rest upon the broad backs of elephants.” “Ah, and may I then ask, upon what do the elephants stand?” “On the back of a giant turtle.” “And what does the turtle rest on?” “Oh, from there it’s turtles all the way down.”

Whatever your cosmology, whatever understanding you have of the nature of our cosmos and its origin, there is a point at which the curtain falls and we stand before an abyss of unknowing—the point at which it’s turtles all the way down.

In such a search for beginnings, the rational mind is shown its limits, unable to investigate the ground of its own being. Nor can it account for the presence of being itself. At some point the mind must simply stop before the reality of that “which always was, is, and will be.” It must stop before that which is other than and prior to its own categories of cause and effect and time and space. The probing mind that would go in search of the ultimate beginning is ultimately led back to itself and to the mystery of the presence of being itself.

But though we must always stand humbly before this ultimate cosmological question, perhaps we can say something about the creative process itself, and in this way acquaint ourselves with the ultimate power of being out of which we all come and back into which we all return.

How does creation begin? How can we talk about the beginning of creation since we join it mid-stream? It is already well along the way before we become aware of it—we can only look back upon it. So what can we say about it?

In the first verse of the creation story from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis we find these words: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep (Genesis 1:1-2a).

There’s an interesting, probably unanswerable, textual question here: Is this creation out of nothing—creatio ex nihilo—or did the Creator God in this story have pre-existing materials with which he was working and from which the dome of the heaven above and the circular disc of the earth below were formed?

Whatever conclusion one might come to on that question, in the beginning—at the beginning of creative activity, before any creation takes place—there is no form or differentiation of any kind. There is only formless void, waste, chaos. The original waters of creation are not contained in any boundaries or forms. In the beginning, says the story, water covers everything. There is only water, but water without anything to contain it or shape it or give it form.

Water, water everywhere…water and darkness. No light at all. Pitch-black darkness. Cave-black darkness. Black-hole darkness. Submerged in water; turning and twisting in amniotic fluid; unconscious, unaware.

This is how it is in the beginning, says this story of beginnings. This is how it is prior to birth, before creation, looking back upon creation. No awareness. No consciousness. Nothing to see. Nothing to get a handle on. The paper is blank. The mind is blank. No actual thought, idea, understanding or direction. Potential only.

And everything all mixed up together. Chaos. No recognized or recognizable form. No differentiation. This is how it is in the beginning. This, looking back, is a beginning element of a creation.

But then there is some movement in the creative process, for we read: And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light (Genesis 1:2b-3). There was movement in the dark formlessness and sleepiness.

A stirring. A shifting. A breeze. A gentle wind beginning to blow. The spirit of God upon the deep. The spirit of creativity moving upon the face of the waters.

In other words, into your blankness, into your slumber, into your torpidity, into your state of unknowing: a little movement, a breath, a whiff of something, a possibility, even some light. Out of the darkness of unconsciousness, out of the womb of unknowing, out of the realm of deep sleep: some light.

And with the light the first differentiation is seen in the chaos and the darkness. The first division of things, a division of light and dark. The first pair of opposites. A signal that creation has begun. Because creation always means division. It means separation into this and that. It means a division of the whole. The formless void is divided.

man reaching towards dark moon This is the beginning: the division into light and dark. And soon after that, another division, a huge and crude division, for into the watery void a divider is placed. Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament;…and God called the firmament Heaven (Genesis 1:6-8).

“Firmament” is not a very familiar word to us anymore. And though I heard it often enough as a youngster in connection with this Genesis creation story, it was not until years later that I understood what it meant.

To comprehend “firmament” you have to put yourself back into a more ancient time with a different cosmology, a tri-partite cosmology in which the entire universe consists of “heaven above, the earth beneath, and the water under the earth” (Exodus 20:4). And the earth, as I indicated earlier, is understood as a flat, circular disc, and the heaven above is a dome over the earth—like a covering for a cake plate—and presumably it’s a clear, solid dome in which the stars are hung as well as the sun and moon.

This firmament, this dome of heaven over the earth, is the first concrete division in our story of beginnings. Into the watery chaos comes a divider, separating the waters above the dome from the waters under the dome. When it rains you are being soaked by waters that have come through the windows of the dome of heaven.

Here, in the beginning, you now feel yourself making your first headway in the dark, watery void. A division is taking place, a great division—some kind of partition rising out of the water, separating water on one side from water on the other.

Something that before was completely unconscious now becomes crudely conscious: waters separating before you, a dividing of the waters, a parting of the waters. That which is unconscious, which is potentiality only, now begins to become actual, emerging from water. Some differentiation taking place.

And then more differentiation, for we read: Let the waters under the heaven [under the firmament, the dome of the sky] be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear:…And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters God called the Seas (Genesis 1:9-10).

Dry land. A place to stand. And now creation can take place in earnest, with all different forms and shapes and plans, gradual and simple at first, but becoming increasingly complex. The dome of heaven can be hung with lights, and the disc of earth can become green with vegetation and with creatures of all kinds. And the seas, similarly, can be filled with living things of all kinds.

This, then, is the beginning of beginnings: First, chaos in the formless void. Second, early stages of differentiation. And third, movement toward the more finely differentiated.

Enough, then, to begin a new year.
Enough for the beginning of a new creative cycle.
Enough to know that creation does not happen instantaneously.
Enough to know that chaos is a necessary element in creation.
Enough to know that much may be going on beneath the surface and in the darkness.
Enough to know that we become aware of a creative process long after it is already under way.
Enough to know that we may some day be conscious enough to be partners with the creativity that has birthed us.
Enough to know that patience may be useful, that trust may be helpful, and that the new year may be interesting in ways we could never, ever dream.