Tag: God

The Contemplative Gospel Part I: Creation, Fall, and Our Lost Communion with God

Camaron G. W. SmithLeave a comment
Abstract contemplative artwork of two glowing human silhouettes beneath a starry night sky, their bodies filled with starlight. Beside them stands a lone tree, half in shadow and half in light. Near the tree, a larger silhouette made of starlight represents God walking with them. The scene is cosmic, sacred, and symbolic, in deep blues, purples, and gold.

The Gospel Begins with Wonder, Not Sin

The gospel does not begin with sin. It begins with wonder.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). From the first moment, creation was spoken into being within God’s own presence. Life emerged as song, at his call, not apart from him but held inside his life. Mountains rose and oceans gathered, their beauty already shimmering with his nearness.

And then God stooped low, pressing his breath into dust. Humanity came alive, not only because of lungs and blood, but because every heartbeat throbbed with the life of God. As Paul would later say, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

The world has never existed outside of God. We dwell in him, even as he dwells in us. Every breath you take is not just survival. It is communion.

Created to Share in the Divine Life

“Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). From the beginning, we were not just creatures surviving on borrowed breath. We were made as mirrors of the divine, meant to shine with another’s glory.

The apostle Peter writes, “we were made to be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Creation is not simply about survival or usefulness. It is about communion. It is about living our lives inside the very life of God.

Irenaeus of Lyons once said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive, and the life of the human consists in beholding God.” That is creation’s secret. We were meant to live every breath as communion, every heartbeat as sacrament. The mystics remind us again and again that the world is charged with God. Meister Eckhart could say that every creature is “a word of God and a book about God.” Before sermons, before catechisms, creation itself was already preaching. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).

What would it look like to see creation, the tree outside your window, the face across the table, as a word of God spoken to you?

The Fracture of the Fall

But then the story bends.

The serpent’s whisper is subtle. “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:5). The tragedy is that likeness to God was already our inheritance. What could have been received through communion, we tried to seize through grasping. What was meant to be given in love, we reached for in desire.

And in the reaching, something broke. Their eyes opened, but not to glory. Only to shame (Genesis 3:7). Hearts that once lived open to God turned inward and hid from the Presence that still walked in the garden (Genesis 3:8). Communion became exile.

Sin as Broken Communion and Blindness

For the mystic, sin is not simply breaking rules. It is breaking communion. Augustine captures it in his Confessions: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Restlessness is the echo of what we lost. It is the ache of a heart turned from the fountain of life, thirsting for water while standing beside the spring. Jeremiah gave it his own words: “My people have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

Gregory of Nyssa, the great contemplative, saw humanity as created for an endless ascent into God. Our destiny was always to go deeper into beauty without end. But in the fall, our gaze turned from the Infinite to ourselves. We lost our horizon. We curved inwards. The soul that was meant to climb into God instead closed in on itself.

This is why the mystics often speak of sin as blindness. John of the Cross wrote of the dark night, when the soul cannot perceive the light even though it surrounds her. That is Eden’s exile. The Presence never left. The light still shines in the darkness, but our eyes have forgotten how to see it (John 1:5).

God’s Presence Remains After the Fall

And yet, even here, grace remains.

God does not abandon Adam and Eve to their shame. He clothes them with garments (Genesis 3:21). He keeps walking, keeps calling: “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). This is not the cry of a detective chasing criminals. It is the voice of a lover searching for his beloved. Even in exile, God follows. Even in our turning, he does not turn.

Julian of Norwich, reflecting on human sin, once heard Christ speak these words to her: “Sin is behovely, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” For her, sin was not the end. It was the place where mercy would be revealed.

We are dust, but dust still held by God’s breath. We are exiles, but never outside his gaze. The wound is real, but so is the promise. The God who made us to share in his own life will not rest until we do.

A Contemplative Practice

Take a few minutes today to sit quietly. Place your hand on your chest. Feel your breath rise and fall. With each inhale, pray: “In You I live.” With each exhale, pray: “In You I rest.”

As you breathe, remember that the first breath you ever received was God’s. Even in exile, his life still holds you.

Written in Heaven

scribblingtheologyLeave a comment

A biblical theology of suffering and hope

Suffering will find you

as it found Him.

But your name is written in heaven,

In light no shadow can touch.

In the beginning,

God breathed into dust

and called it good.

But even before the dust was firm beneath our feet,

a shadow waited.

The Serpent spoke,

and we listened.

The Garden shrank behind flaming swords,

and we stepped into the world

with thorns in our hands

and longing in our bones.

(Genesis 3)

Pain was not the beginning

but it was the consequence of forgetting

who we are.

Still, God did not turn away.

He clothed the shame.

He called the wanderers.

He wrestled with Jacob,

wept with Hannah,

answered Job not with reasons

but with a storm.

He carved covenant into stone,

carried the cries of Israel through wilderness,

and spoke comfort even in exile.

(Exodus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Lamentations)

And when words would no longer suffice,

The Word became flesh (John 1).

Not safe flesh,

not unmarked flesh

but bruised, bloody, breakable.

He came not to explain suffering

but to inhabit it.

To be born under empire,

to labour in obscurity,

to sweat blood,

to carry a cross.

“He was a man of sorrows,

acquainted with grief.”

(Isaiah 53:3)

The God of the cosmos

entered the wound of the world

and made it His dwelling place.

The cross is not a detour.

It is the way.

“If anyone would follow me,” He says,

“Let them deny themselves,

take up their cross daily,

and follow.”

(Luke 9:23)

This is not cruelty.

It is an invitation.

To union. To dying. To resurrection.

To be baptised not only in water,

but into His death.

(Romans 6:3–5)

And yet

your name is written in heaven.

(Luke 10:20)

This is what He told them, not after comfort, but after conflict.

Not when they were safe, but when they were sent.

When they saw demons fall and darkness tremble,

He said:

“Do not rejoice in this…”

“Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Because what matters

is not that you wield power,

but that you are known.

Held.

Remembered.

Inscribed in the eternal.

“See, I have engraved you

on the palms of my hands.”

(Isaiah 49:16)

The apostles knew.

They were beaten and blessed.

Scattered and sealed.

They rejoiced to suffer disgrace for the Name. (Acts 5:41)

Paul was no stranger to thorns

in the flesh, in the church, in his prayers.

And yet he wrote:

“We suffer with Him,

that we may also be glorified with Him.”

(Romans 8:17)

“These light and momentary afflictions

are preparing for us

an eternal weight of glory.”

(2 Corinthians 4:17)

Even creation groans, but not in despair,

in birth.

(Romans 8:22)

The Spirit does not take away the ache.

The Spirit groans with us.

Prays when we have no words.

Dwells in the dust with us

until all things are made new.

And they will be.

For He will come again.

Not as a suffering servant,

but as the One who wipes every tear.

(Revelation 21:4)

And He will not forget.

He will open the book, the Lamb’s book

and read the names

that the world has tried to erase.

The names written in heaven

before the foundations of the world.

(Revelation 13:8)

Yours among them.

Suffering is not the evidence that you are lost.

It is the path of the saints,

the shape of the cross,

the echo of Eden groaning toward glory.

And you,

even as you weep,

even when you are wounded—

are not forgotten.

Your name is written in heaven,

in light no shadow can touch.

And the One who knows it

still bears scars of His own.

The Deep, the Breath, and the Beginning of Meaning

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Poetic and Theological Reflections on Genesis 1:1–2

“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” — Genesis 1:2

In the beginning

there was no beginning.

Not like we think.

Not a ticking clock

not a big bang or a blank slate.

Only

deep.

dark.

Formless

unfurnished

uninviting.

And the Breath of God

hovering

not rushing

not fixing

not panicking

just waiting.

A mother-bird

brooding over brokenness

wings sheltering what could be.

This is where our story starts

not in triumph

but in tension.

Not in arrival

but in anticipation.

In the beginning,

God didn’t make things

not first.

God made room.

A place.

A sacred space.

He carved order out of what was not yet useful.

He called forth function

from futility.

He said:

“Let this be a place where I dwell

and they dwell.

Let it be home.”

The first act of creation

was not to build

but to breathe.

And the Breath still moves

over your chaos.

over your depths.

over your formless days

and unlit nights.

Don’t rush the Spirit.

It’s still hovering.

It’s still preparing.

It’s still holy.

Because in the beginning,

God made time to wait.

And called even the waiting good.

A Theological Reflection

Genesis does not begin with a scientific explanation nor with abstract philosophy. It begins with God. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). But what follows is striking: “Now the earth was formless and empty”—tohu v’vohu in Hebrew—”darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters” (Genesis 1:2). The story opens not with perfection, but with potential. Not with answers but with mystery.

This state of tohu v’vohu—wild, waste, and without purpose—is not described as a problem to be eradicated but a canvas awaiting intention. In the biblical imagination, this primordial chaos is not evil. It is simply untamed. The deep, or tehom, is not a demonic force to conquer, as in the Babylonian Enuma Elish, but an unordered reality that awaits divine speech.

Genesis 1 is not a science textbook. Nor is it an ancient myth. It is sacred theology told through poetic narrative. As I’ve written elsewhere, Genesis 1 is not about material origins but functional order. It’s not primarily about how the world was made but how God gave it meaning. In the ancient Near Eastern mindset, something did not truly “exist” until it had a name, a function, a role in the cosmic order. As Old Testament scholar John Walton argues, creation in Genesis is about assigning purpose, not assembling matter.

This is evident in the structure of the text: six days of calling forth realms and rulers—light and dark (Day 1), sky and sea (Day 2), land and vegetation (Day 3), and then the lights (Day 4), birds and fish (Day 5), animals and humanity (Day 6). Each act ends with God’s affirmation: “And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, etc.). Good not as morally perfect, but functioning as intended. Creation is liturgy. Each day builds like a worship service, culminating in God’s rest on the seventh day (Genesis 2:1–3).

Genesis 1 portrays the world as a cosmic temple, with God taking up residence on Day 7. In the ancient world, a temple was not finished until the deity rested within it. “The heavens are my throne, and the earth is my footstool,” says the Lord in Isaiah 66:1—a temple image that harks back to Eden. When God rests, it’s not because he is tired but because creation is complete, purposeful, and ready to be inhabited by the divine presence.

Notice also what God does not do. The Spirit of God does not launch into production but hovers—rachaph in Hebrew—like a bird tending its young (Deuteronomy 32:11 uses the same word to describe an eagle hovering over its nest). This is not a moment of domination but of delicate presence. Before God says a word, God is simply there, waiting, brooding, holding space. The Spirit does not conquer the darkness but prepares the way for light.

This image is carried throughout Scripture. In the Gospels, when Jesus is baptized, the heavens open, and the Spirit descends like a dove (Luke 3:22). The waters part, the voice speaks, and once again, God hovers over the waters—not in creation now, but in new creation. Paul will echo this theme in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.” Creation and re-creation are both acts of divine hovering, divine speaking, divine presence.

Likewise, in John 1, we hear another beginning: “In the beginning was the Word… through him all things were made” (John 1:1–3). This is Genesis 1, revisited with Christ at the centre. The chaos is not overcome by violence but illumined by speech: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). There is no war between light and dark in Genesis, just a calling forth—of form from formlessness, rhythm from silence, cosmos from chaos.

So we are reminded that Genesis is not just history—it is theological storytelling. It doesn’t answer all the questions of “how,” but it speaks profoundly to the questions of “why.” Who are we? What kind of world do we live in? What kind of God do we serve?

A God who hovers.

A God who speaks meaning into voids.

A God who rests not when he is done making but when the world is ready to be home.

So when we look into our own chaos—personal, cultural, existential—we do so not with fear but with faith. Because the God of Genesis 1 still hovers. Still speaks. Still brings light out of darkness.

Genesis opens not with resolution but with possibility.

Books for the Road: Reading Through Doubt and Deconstruction

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You’re not alone if you’re wrestling with doubt, rethinking your faith, or wandering the winding path of deconstruction. This journey is confusing, lonely, and sometimes even terrifying for many. But you’re not the first to walk it—and you don’t have to do it without companions.

Here are a few books that have offered wisdom, empathy, and even a little light in the dark for fellow pilgrims:

1. Faith After Doubt — Brian McLaren

McLaren gently reframes doubt not as the enemy of faith but as part of its maturation. If you’re deconstructing, this book offers a four-stage model that validates your questions and invites you to move forward with integrity.

2. The Audacity of Peace: Invisible Jesus in a Violent World — Scot McKnight

McKnight confronts the disconnect between the real Jesus and the distorted versions we often inherit. Rooted in peacemaking and justice, this book invites us to rediscover the counter-cultural Christ that many feared didn’t exist. It’s a bold, timely read for those burned by power-shaped religion.

3. The Sin of Certainty — Peter Enns

If “believing the right things” no longer works for you, Enns offers a different take: trust. Drawing from Scripture and his own story, he makes space for a more dynamic, less rigid faith.

4. When Everything’s on Fire — Brian Zahnd

I cannot recommend this book enough. Zahnd speaks to the crisis many face when faith burns down. But rather than leaving it all behind, he makes a passionate case for a deeper, post-deconstruction Christianity rooted in mystery and beauty.

5. Perhaps: Reclaiming the Space Between Doubt and Dogmatism — Josh McNall

McNall argues that we don’t need to choose between rigid certainty and total scepticism. Perhaps is a compelling call to humility and hope—a way to hold convictions while remaining open to mystery.

This isn’t a map—but maybe it’s a stack of trail notes passed from one wanderer to another.

I’d love to hear if you’ve read something that helped you stay in the wrestle.

Following the Winter Sun

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There are seasons in the soul when the warmth of faith feels far off. The glow that once saturated your days with clarity fades into a pale shimmer low on the horizon. These are the winter months of discipleship—when following Jesus feels less like dancing in the light and more like trudging through shadows.

And yet, the call remains.

Christ does not promise us eternal summer (at least in this life). His road leads through the wilderness (Mark 1:12–13), through the long dark of Gethsemane (Luke 22:44), and through the silence between Good Friday and Easter morning. “Take up your cross,” He said (Luke 9:23), not your picnic blanket. Faith becomes less about the brilliance of belief and more about the posture of trust, especially when nothing feels certain.

To follow the winter sun is to trace faint light when it offers no heat. It is to remember that the sun is still rising, even when its warmth is hidden. In the same way, to follow Jesus in seasons of silence, sorrow, or struggle is to walk with Him not for what He gives, but for who He is.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). But notice—lamps in ancient times did not flood the road. They lit only the next few steps. God rarely overwhelms us with certainty. Instead, He invites us to walk in rhythm with Him, step by unsure step.

The winter sun teaches us that light is still light, even when dim. Christ is still Christ, even when His presence feels like absence. And sometimes, that kind of trust is the holiest kind.

I have followed the sun
when it was warm,
when it laid itself across my back
like a blessing.
When it sang golden through the leaves
and made holiness seem easy.

But now—
it is winter.
The sun slips sideways
into low skies and long shadows.
It does not warm,
only glimmers.
And still—
I follow.

I do not follow because it is bright,
but because I have seen it rise
from behind the hills
too many mornings
to doubt its return.

I do not follow because I feel it—
most days, I don’t.
I follow because
once, it found me
when I wasn’t looking.
And that kind of finding
is hard to forget.

So I walk
with a stiff wind against my chest,
shoes wet with old rain,
the path uncertain—
but I walk.

Because some loves
are not about feeling
but choosing.

And some mornings
are not about light
but trust.

And I trust
that even this cold sun
knows where it’s going—
and that it is worth
following.