CREATION PAST THE SIXTH DAY

Some of us believe it never stopped.

Before I tackle the Quakers I would like to revisit where at least some of their beliefs came from. 

 Formidable looking character isn't he? Easterners like Augustin didn't quite know what to make of the fellow from Britain. A big man, obdiously well educated. Didn't mind sharing his beliefs with anyone who would listen including basketweavers in their shops or women at their spinning wheels. Talking to women about theology! Some of the early eastern theologians weren't even sure women had souls. Certainly didn't have any busines talking about that God stuff. Remember Eve!I doubt if Pelgius ever mentioned Eve. 

 I don't remember when or how I ran into Pelagius. Briton. Might have been Welsh. Christian, but not a follower of what would become the Roman version of Christianity. He may have started out as one of the last Druids. His tonsure resembled that of the Druids, head shaved up from the ears over the forehead, hair in the back left long. Very different from the shave the top of the head that was becoming common in the rest of the growing Christian world. 

I learned to keep my curiosity to myself when out Methodist pastor made one of his rare home visits. I started to ask questions only to get "he's a heretic!" OooKaaay. Back to the internet for you. Most of what we know comes from scraps and what was written accusing him of heresy. He was not a believer in Augustin's Original Sin. He apparently believed that a person could become holy, not by grace, but by immitating Jesus as much as possible. Anyway what do I know. I only know that what has come down speaks to me. And apparently spoke to others including William Penn the Quaker and a contemporary Otrhodox bishop, Timothy Ware. I've been tap dancing on the line between conventional Christianity, whatever that is, and the still not mainline beliefs that include most Quakers and what the conventionals choos to call paganism. Whatever that means. 

Look at the animals roaming the forest: God’s spirit dwells within them.
Look at the birds flying across the sky: God’s spirit dwells within them.
Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: God’s spirit dwells within them.
Look at the fish in the river and sea: God’s sprit dwells within them.

There is no creature on earth in whom God is absent….When God pronounced that His creation was good it was not only that his hand had fashioned every creature; it was that His breath had brought every creature to life. Look too at the great trees of the forest; look at the wildflowers and the grass in the fields; look even at your crops. God’s spirit is present within all plants as well. The presence of God’s spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful; and if we look with God’s eyes nothing on the earth is ugly. Attributed to Pelagius of Britain late fourth century/fifth century.

“If God were to stop speaking the whole created universe would cease to exist. In the rising of the morning sun God speaks to us of grace and new beginnings, and the fertility of the earth is a sign of how life wells up from within, from the dark unknown place of God.” Born in the early ninth century this is from the teachings of John Scotus Eriugena, John the Irishman, from Ireland. John taught that all Creation speaks to us with the voice of God. He echoed an earlier voice from the island fringes,

Pelagius was said to have claimed he'd met pagans who were better "Christians" than some Christians he had the bad luck to meet. 

And an English Orthodox bishop, Timothy Ware seems to echo the assertion of Tom Cowan, a Celtic shaman that Creation is less a bringing into existence of some “thing” from no “thing” as a reshaping. And that God can no more not create than he/she can cease to exist.

I wonder if this way of looking at the world can be traced back to the area just west of Central Asia where the Celtic tribes and the tribes that overran Greece after the age of Homer are supposed to have originated. It’s a way of looking at the world that seems almost alien. We were and are taught that God created the world. Finito. Believing that Creation is ongoing pulls the rug out of a lot of assumptions. Creation becomes fluid, Infinite. Tantalizing. Blink and the world changes.

Or careful or you might find a Goddess taking up residence in your imagination, keeping watch on the seascape until you finally answer the door. At least she had the grace not to roll her eyes with an “it’s about time.”

And some of the modern Celtic followers see Creation not as spoken but sung. A great music echoing through the Universe. If the Creator stops singing Creation stops. Now if I could just get my head back where I was going before everything went to heck a few years ago.