The Essence of Our Being by Karin Baard
CATEGORIES
- Anthropomorphism 3
- Art and Spirituality 1
- Atonement 2
- Awareness 4
- Beauty and Spirituality 1
- Bible 8
- Buddhism 18
- Certitude 1
- Christian History 8
- Christian Mysticism 17
- Christian Theology 9
- Christianity 44
- Consciousness 42
- Death 1
- Deng Ming Dao 1
- Divine Feminine 9
- Ecology 1
- Ecumenicalism 15
- Ego 4
- Elders 1
- Fear 10
- Forgiveness 2
- Fundamentalism 3
- God 11
- Heart 6
- Heaven 1
- Hinduism 2
- Human Development 3
- Humility 1
- Insecurity 2
- Intuition 1
- Lack 1
- Life 1
- Love 7
- Mercy 1
- Mindfulness 11
- Modernity 1
- Mystery 3
- Mysticism 22
- Native American Folklore 1
- Nondualism 1
- Paradox 2
- Philosophy 5
- Poets 1
- Psychology 19
- Relationships 3
- Religion 1
- Sacred Feminine 1
- Scriptures 1
- Self 2
What is it we have forgotten about ourselves and one another? In the Celtic tradition, the Garden of Eden is not a place in space and time from which we are separated. It is the deepest dimension of our being from which we live in a type of exile. It is our place of origin or genesis in God. Eden is home, but we live far removed from it. And yet in the Genesis account, the Garden is not destroyed. Rather Adam and Eve become fugitives from the place of their deepest identity. It is a picture of humanity living in exile.
At the beginning of the Hebrew scriptures, the Book of Genesis describes humanity as made in the “image” and “likeness” of God (Genesis 1:26). This is a fundamental truth in our biblical inheritance. Everything else that is said about us in the scriptures needs to be read in the light of this starting point. The image of God is at the core of our being. And like the Garden, it has not been destroyed. It may have become covered over or lost sight of, but it is at the beginning of who we are.
A nineteenth-century teacher in the Celtic world, Alexander Scott, used the analogy of royal garments. Apparently in his day, royal garments were woven through with a costly thread, a thread of gold. And if somehow the golden thread were taken out of the garment, the whole garment would unravel. So it is, he said, with the image of God woven into the fabric of our being. If it were taken out of us, we would unravel. We would cease to be. So the image of God is not simply a characteristic of who we are, which may or may not be there, depending on whether or not we have been baptized. The image of God is the essence of our being. It is the core of the human soul. We are sacred not because we have been baptized or because we belong to one faith tradition over another.
We are sacred because we have been born.
But what does it mean to be made in the image of God? What does it mean to say that the Garden is our place of deepest identity? In part, it is to say that wisdom is deep within us, deeper than the ignorance of what we have done or become. It is to say that the passion of God for what is just and right is deep within, deeper than any apathy or participation in wrong that has crippled us. To be made in the image of God is to say that creativity is at the core of our being, deeper than any barrenness that has dominated our lives and relationships. And above all else, it is to say that love and the desire to give ourselves away to one another in love is at the heart of who we are, deeper than any fear or hatred that holds us hostage. Deep within us is a longing for union, for our genesis is in the One from whom all things have come. Our home is the garden, and deep within us is the yearning to hear its song again.
Newell, John Philip. Christ of the Celts: The Healing of Creation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008. | Photo by Emiel Molenaar on Unsplash
SOURCE: https://heartbeatjourney.org/the-essence-of-our-being/
