Creator Creating Creation, and Before

Yesterday we spoke of the evolutionary breakthrough of Christ consciousness or something. No doubt there are better and more accurate ways of putting it, but one of the points of this blog is to put it in such a way that modern ears perk up instead of shutting down. 

It's the opposite of all that spooky talk about, for example, being washed in the blood of the lamb, which speaks to exactly no one in the modern world and gives many people a bad case of the heebie Jeebus. 

The frame is not the painting, nor the stage the play. The old-time relingo is still there for those who prefer it, but I can't help thinking that the linguistic frame needs to be tweaked. 

Moreover, once you're in -- or, more to the point, it into you -- an x-factor begins to exert its influence, such that things that previously made no sense begin to add up. According to no less an authority than Martha and the Vandellas, love makes you do foolish things. As does truth.

Moreover, one becomes much more comfortable with ambiguity, and with not having cutandry answers to every last question. As faith slowly converts to understanding, one sees this very movement as a complementarity that proceeds in both directions, i.e., faith <---> understanding, such that understanding grows with faith and faith with understanding. Am I wrong?  

And how, exactly, is this different from science? As science answers questions, we have more faith in science. Which is fine on its own plane. 

Anyway, Torrell (in Thomas Aquinas Vol. II, Spiritual Master) writes that Christ "appears as the summit and crowning of a universe entirely ruled by the communication of the Divine Being." 

Christ is found, in fact, at the perfect intersection of the two orders of mediation, descending and ascending.

Recall what we said two or three posts back about those two dynamic circles -- vertical and horizontal -- and of how they bisect in Christ. This circularity "finds in Christ its most perfect and beautiful expression."

And now I want to careen the cosmic bus into a heretical direction. Don't worry, I'm sober (as in "sober intoxication," to be precise). We can always pull short of the abyss, or better yet, 

Faith is what allows us to wander into any idea without losing our way back (words of the Aphorist in purple from now on).

So, let's get lost! I promise to get you back before... lunch, anyway.

Some people say the universe had a beginning, even -- or especially -- the cool kids, what with the Big Bang and all. But I'm here to tell you with a creepy stage whisper that it's always been here.

No, not necessarily this creation, nor am I talking about the "multiverse," rather, creation as such, including the Cosmic Christ alluded to above. 

It's always best to begin before the beginning, but in this case we'll begin with the second best, which is to say, the beginning. 

What a ridiculously presumptuous word: "beginning"! For EVERYTHING and EVERYTHING and EVERYTHING itself begins before we think it begins and ends after where we think it ends.

Now, if this be the case, then if we are going to talk about the beginning, we have to start before we think it begins, and even then, the real beginning will be before that.

So, "where to begin" is not remotely self-evident. Therefore, I won't call this a beginning, just a... first stab, or initial approach.

Obviously, creation "comes from" an origin; not from a cosmic, hence "created" substance, but from a reality pertaining to the Creator... (Schuon).

Creator, Creating, Creation. Where's the line? There are several ways to look at this, for example

Creator / Creating Creation

Creator Creating / Creation

Creator / Creating / Creation  

Creator Creating Creation / 

And most mysteriously of all, 

/ Creator Creating Creation

But my blood sugar is too low to think this through, so, to be continued. Frankly, I could use a donut right about now: