This Week’s Quotation:
In God we live and move and have our being. It is God who gives life to all, who gives power and being to all that exists. Consider that you are in God, surrounded and encompassed by God, swimming in God.
~ Mother Teresa
Being in God the Creator
I think it is obvious from this professed devotion from Mother Teresa that to her, God was not some remote and separate entity up there or out there somewhere in the universe. Surely to suggest that we are “swimming in God” means that God is the very essence of our being, the very core of who we are.
So what does this mean for us in terms of our life here on earth? God is a creator, The Creator, and so we, being “made in the image and likeness of God,” are also creators. We are here on earth to create, in fact, to magnify the creative impulse that brought our beautiful planet into existence.
A woman I know who honors and lives her role as a creator was told by a friend that it is arrogant to assume you are a creator. Quite the opposite is true! Are we here merely to kill time and take as much as we can from the Earth while something else creates for us?
God the Creator had a magnificent gift to bring into being—the universe in all its glory. Similarly, we as God Creators each have magnificent gifts to bring: artistic talent of all kinds, caring for the natural world, even the love we make visible in our everyday work. It’s all creation streaming from the God in whom “we live and move and have our being.”
About Open Windows
We, the authors of this blog, dedicate it to the transparent exploration of the world’s sacred scripture and enlightened spiritual thought. We believe that the original inspiration of all faiths comes from a common source, named and revered in a myriad of ways. With that understanding, the innumerable symbols, beliefs, and practices of faith cease to divide. They become open windows to a common reality that inspires and unifies us. We find deeper insight and nourishment in our own faith and from the expression of faith from others.
We hope these weekly quotations and meditations speak to your heart and soul.
4 Responses
Wow! Swimming in God! Created in his Likeness! YES! You go, Jerry! You go, Terri! Love always, Tom
Has anyone ever wondered why the Book of Genesis 1:26 says “Let US make man/mankind/humans in OUR image’? The Hebrew word translated as God is Elohim – a plural noun meaning ‘gods’ plural. Was it a pantheon of gods that collectively created humanity? The Hebrews were certainly influenced by Canaanite traditions which recognized a multitude of Gods which Hindus would simply describe as the thousand faces or aspects of Brahma. Even if we accept that all gods, as well as ourselves, derive from the One Divine Source or Being (which I do), the idea of a collective of gods creating human beings together in THEIR image is something I can more easily relate to. That makes more sense to me because the best creations are CO-creations. We are co-creators with all the other gods if we choose to accept this mission. Let’s (Let US) do it.
I agree, Michael, that a God collective is a more reasonable way to describe creation. There is a sense in which each one of us as God Beings participated in the creation of the Earth and all the human and other forms on it, truly a monumental act of co-creation!
Dearest friend Jerry – anyone who knows you, knows that with your shared energy, we are swimming in your love. Blessings to you always…