Creation Stories as Creativity Stories: At Play with the First Origin Story
Savor the Story Series
Appreciating the stories in the Bible involves more than critical study. In this series of occasional posts, Gordon Raynal engages Bible stories as works of literature to enjoy. He invites a playful and imaginative approach to the stories. Not assuming that the Bible is literal fact can free creativity in hearing and interacting with its stories. Rev. Raynal is a religious leader well-read in critical scholarship with a lifelong engagement with Bible stories. This series will offer examples of how we can allow biblical stories to engage our imaginations in a deeper appreciation of biblical texts. Links will be provided in the future for critical scholarship that relates to the passages mentioned.
For more about the series, check out the interview with Gordon Raynal, Podcast 5 on the Podcast page.
Two dolphins (Stenella frontalis) jump out of the ocean off Brazilian coast. Photo: Victor Rault, Captain Darwin Project. Wikimedia Commons.
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Seeing beyond Sight
Have you seen the truly amazing pictures of the universe from the James Webb Space Telescope? These images take us not only far beyond what the unaided eye can see, but also to images that show us pictures from long before there was a planet Earth or even our own galaxy. Simply mind-boggling!
This latest tool points us to how we now think about origins. Over the last centuries with the ongoing refinement of the scientific method, we have come to think of creation in terms of theoretical knowledge and mathematical formulations. Simply put, talk of creation is talk about the best reasoned explanations from the best data available to us. What incredible knowledge has been gathered! With this knowledge a whole host of new technologies have been created. The scientific approach to thinking about origins is truly a marvel of the application of human reason to exploring and making sense of the universe.
The ancients who created biblical origin narratives had no access to the images of the universe that the Webb Telescope is sending us. Their images of the world were more restricted than ours. Today the word creation focuses our attention on a vast universe. The Bible does not describe a vast universe of billions of galaxies. Rather, the Bible offers an abundance of stories about beginnings, creativity, and our experience of it. Said another way, the biblical origin stories invite us to experience the quite sensible world we encounter in every moment.
Biblical narratives and poems were not produced as history lessons so much as “encounter” stories and poems. We can receive them as invitations into a variety of human experiences. The Bible contains lots and lots of what I call “creativity” narratives and poems. Let’s begin with an imaginative engagement with the first story in the Bible to see how it can open our senses to fresh appreciation of the world we live in, how it can excite our own creativity in the world.
Creation and Creativity: “In the Beginning”
The Bible begins with a story of creation and creativity in Genesis 1 to 2:4.
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:1-5, New Revised Standard Version)
The story imagines the creation of the world and everything in it in the time frame of a week. Across six days, God’s voice speaks the world into existence and then rests on the seventh day.
The story invites reflection about the Creation as a place of splendid art. The meditation below invites you to imagine waking up on the beach on a very foggy morning:
Setting the Scene
You wake up on the wet sand in the dark of night near the pounding waves and the atmosphere is thick with fog. As you wake there is no sight, but your senses of smell, taste, touch, and hearing are aroused. The smell and taste of the salt air fill you. The touch of the wet air and wet sand surround you. The sounds are what focus your attention. The whistle of the breeze. The crash of the waves. The sounds of distant thunder as it rolls across the water.
Soak in that scene, unseeing yet full of sensations, and especially rich in sound. Proceed to the next scene. Take time after reading each scene to pay close attention to your sensations.
Dawning
Daybreak comes. The sun on its daily course pours out light even before the sunrise. The thick fog already dispersing soon melts away. Now a world of sights begins to open. Very good!
2. Firmament
Above is the life-giving sky. Every breath of life comes from it. Aquifers, wells, rivers, lakes—all have their source in the firmament, the dome of the sky. When you take a sip of water to satisfy your thirst or for simple delight, remember how it comes from the sky above. With every bath you take, be fresh and clean with sky-given water. Breathe the rich moist air. Drink in refreshing water. Feel its fresh cleansing. Very good!
3. A Place to Live
Look all around you! Be aware. Yonder the seas. Above the moist air. Walk any direction. Walk long enough and eventually you will run into water. Yes, water underneath! But that sand beneath your toes is a place to stand. Dear Mother Earth, a place to travel. Dear Mother Earth, full of beautiful vegetation of every kind, including delicious sources of nutrition! Look all around and you see a place teeming with life. Very good!
4. Time
The sun rises. The moon, planets, and stars set. Tick and tock goes the clock. Time to be alive. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years to live. Sun day onto Moon day… and so we start to count the days of our lives. Sun to provide a sight rich world. Moons to mark our travels across time. Time to live. Very good!
5. Company Aplenty
The pelicans skim the waves. The dolphin arches out to catch her breath. Afar, a whale blows a geyser. Willets and sandpipers dash about in search for their morning meal. And back from the beach every kind of beast roams their habitats. Air, water, land. All places of habitation. Very good!
6. Beloved
And then down the beach comes your beloved, fresh cup of coffee or tea in hand. So not only company aplenty, but our compliments and our completions. Someone or ones to finally say, “Thank you! Isn’t it a lovely day!” Very good!
7. Rest-Filled
A morning complete! A lovely day! A delightful vacation week! And on to months and years and lifetimes to rejoice in the fullness of it all. We were made for this! Very good!
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The first story in the Bible invites us to pay fresh attention to the creativity all around us. It invites us to pause in our journeys to pay close attention to the abundance that surrounds us in our generation and for all generations, to experience the rest that comes from discovering the gratitude always lingering in every breath… and beyond. “Shalom” is the Hebrew word that expresses the discovery of that rest!
Far from being “primitive science,” the opening story of creativity in the Bible invites us to exult in the creativity all around us. Where does your creativity connect to the six phases of creation that the story unfolds? Where do you know the seventh moment of stillness and rest? A meditation on the biblical story can deepen our awareness of the marvels that surround us.