Naming God - Life
In the previous post, I wrote, “No word by itself will ever be able to capture God because words limit. However, the gracious call upon us, is to seek and wonder and delight in Life, both in the present and the eternal. Words assist us when they help orient our awareness and then become an invitation to falling into that which is behind and underneath everything.” Now let us explore several words that hold the idea of God in particular ways and help us to “name” the Divine.
“Life” is one of my most used words as I ponder the person of God and the idea of that which is the Source of everything. Despite the great story of Frankenstien (and then Young Frankenstein), we have never created life. We assist in the physical elements and biological imperatives of creating life, but we have never initiated life of any sort. We can set the right conditions for life (place a seed in the dirt, engage in sexual union, or even manipulate an animal to regenerate itself). We can also medically assist the first moment of life. However it occurs, we are not creating actual life even if we are intimate players in the creative moment. I daresay that we will never be able to create the essence of life. Even if current scientific research allows us to regenerate a creature from ancient genetic material, which would truly be amazing, we are still not the source of the life itself.
The atomic particles and molecular necessities for life are not of our making. They have been here since the beginning of the material universe. Those materials do not cease but instead move together into forms of life and then back into the material of everything. We do not create that essence of things. We can learn about it and even manipulate it, but we do not create it. It is from the Source and will always be an outpouring of the Originality.
Life is that which flows through everything. It was all originated from that which energizes and animates everything. It is the essential, original, vital, creativity that finds its way into being and always builds upon that source of energy and essential definition. Life is that which brings molecules all the way forward into consciousness, reproduction, community, meaning, and relationship. Life is unstoppable. Even death doesn’t stop Life (which is why the Christian story is so very grand). Life, Death, and the reinvention and reinvigoration of essential presence is an eternal cycle that speaks to the mighty perseverance and unstoppable strength of that which created and continues to create everything.
Life is bigger than any one thing, including each of us humanoids. Life holds each thing and can be experienced in and through each thing. Life is universal. The good news is that your unique life is eternally fashioned and held by Life itself. You are an expression of Life. You are held by Life. And you will be with Life always.
Kirk Webb
Director of the Celtic Center