The Leaven in the Dough

The forty-sixth saying of the living Christ as spoken by Mary Magdalene:

The kin-dom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman took and hid in forty to sixty pounds of flour until it was all leavened1. If too much leavening is added, the loaf rises too fast. Its structure weakens, and the dough is liable to collapse. The bread can no longer be bread. The kin-dom, when rushed, consumes the field instead of feeding the hungry. It devours what it was meant to bless. It cannot sustain itself. Its flavor sours and it smells and tastes of alcohol. The texture becomes coarse and uneven as the work becomes an impatient conquest pretending to be a holy change.

If not enough yeast is added to the dough, it rises slowly and will never reach its full height. The kin-dom’s endurance gives up before the whole loaf is leavened. Work stops as the people wait for the kin-dom to come, but it never does. The texture is tight, and the bread is hard and lifeless. Its flavor is bland because it never develops its complexity. It is possible that when they check the dough, and see that it is apparently unchanged, they believe the leaven was not good. The power of the kin-dom to transform the world is abandoned because the work is abandoned while it is unseen and struggling.

This hidden transformation is the kin-dom working patiently through the whole of creation. It does not need recognition. No one checks the dough constantly to ensure it is rising. The leaven is trusted to do the work.

This transformation is not driven by the baker. The yeast does not work harder because it is worried over. The kin-dom grows by the innate rhythm of life. Force cannot maintain the endurance of the kin-dom. It is by its nature hidden, since it changes our hearts. The leaven does not require encouragement, it works as life flows through the world.

I saw the risen Christ and the other women saw the angels. Our witness kneaded the leaven into the dough. As more people encountered the living Christ, the leaven grew and the kin-dom rose. The kin-dom is among us, growing through the world as we live God faithfully in our lives.

Patient trust in the hidden work of the kin-dom restores everything. In the work of the kin-dom, we are repaired when we embody our calling, pondering the mysteries of life in our hearts, and release the need to see the change before it is finished.

Our souls are restored as we live in relationship with the unseen process, learning to trust the kin-dom is working even when the evidence is not yet seen. The world is restored because the leavening power of life does not demand, but hides the leaven in the dough of the earth.

Walk, trusting that life knows what to do with what it has been given.

1

Matthew 13:33

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You were not born broken. Fifteen billion years of the universe’s grace says otherwise, and this book shows you how to live from that. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer, foreword by Matthew Fox.

The Pearl of Great Price: The Kin-dom as the Beauty That Reorganizes Everything

The forty-fifth saying of the living Christ as spoken by Mary Magdalene:

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the road, seeking pearls that are full of beauty and value. And finding one pearl, singular and beyond price, he went and sold all that belonged to him, leaving nothing held back, and took hold of it as his own1.

This pearl is not precious merely for its value, but for the way it shared the creative radiance of God into the world. The beauty of the kin-dom is not a private treasure. It is not something to be protected and curated, but something to be lived and shared with all. If this pearl of wisdom becomes a possession, it no longer serves life, nor does it serve the one who owns it. When the pearl is locked in a vault, where the moth eats and the rust devours, it remains untouched but is no longer safe. Shut away from light and touch, it loses its luster. What is meant to live in the open cannot remain radiant in the dark. The one who hides it forgets its beauty. What we refuse to behold, we eventually lose.

If the soul cannot see the beauty of the pearl, the kin-dom becomes severe and without inner light. The covenant persists, maintained by the community, but the Word, Glory, and Presence depart. It becomes the focus of everything, and life loses its meaning. Each day is built around things that no longer sustain life, and the kin-dom crumbles under the weight of duty and obligation, because the Spirit has been driven out.

The beauty of the kin-dom is the life in the word, anointed by the presence of God, and shining with the glory. This does not happen all at once, but the life we grow into as we live in the wisdom within us. The pearl is the vision of the healed life. It draws close what belongs to life. It guides us to let go of what does not belong, leaving no room for grief.

This pearl is not ours to possess. The traveling merchant sold all he had and gave it to the poor so he would no longer be distracted by Mammon once he saw something truly worth living for. The pearl is the presence of the living God present in all, even as we are held within the heart of the Holy One. The one who finds it does not cling to it, but lives in its glorious light. The kin-dom is filled with the witnesses of this light. Remember, the true beauty of the kin-dom is in the light, not the proclamation of it. It is the life that lives under the sun of Divine Grace.

I found the pearl at the empty tomb when I saw the gardener of all life. It was not in the triumph over the grave, but in the light born within me as I beheld the Living Christ and did not cling to him. It shone through me, radiating out into the world to heal it. This is the pearl of the resurrection that witnesses from the heart.

The beauty of the kin-dom brings healing when mutual indwelling becomes the center of our lives. The pearl of the resurrection is one good thing among many, it is the beautiful, life-giving power at the heart of everything. It draws everything into participating in the Divine Nature2. We let go of what does not belong, and receive what does with open hands.

The better we live God, the more our soul is healed. As we participate in the Divine Nature, we know the world is not changed by force or arguments. Beauty restores the world. The radiant life, lived fully in God, is the salve that heals the world’s wounds.

2

2 Peter 1:4

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You were not born broken. Fifteen billion years of the universe’s grace says otherwise, and this book shows you how to live from that. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer, foreword by Matthew Fox.

The Wheat and the Darnel: The Kin-dom That Waits for the Right Judgment at the Right Time

The forty-fourth saying of the living Christ as spoken by Mary Magdalene:

In the field of the world, the faithful workers sow the good seed by day, and the enemy sows the darnel seeds by night. The wheat will grow and feed the people, but the darnel, which resembles it, is poisonous. When the faithful desired to uproot the darnel, the householder told them to wait. The roots of the darnel entwine with the roots of the wheat, “They are bound together until their fruit grows.” When the time of the harvest came, the householder sent workers into the field to pull up the darnel first, then to bind them in bundles and cast them into the fire before the wheat was gathered1.

The kin-dom is patient, and does not rush to judgment. Sin rushes to judgment to either justify itself or condemn others. The accuser speaks with sincerity, making eloquent arguments, but his discernment is grievously wrong in its timing and certainty.

When the workers notice the darnel, they are certain they know which plants are wheat and which are not, even though they look so similar when they are young. The accuser is always certain. His call is always the same, “Purge the impure.” What is impure? Impurity is everything that falls outside the shadow of the idols they have built. God does not want our purity, but our love. To rip out the darnels when they are young destroys the wheat. It is not until the harvest that they can be separated.

Purity is not an obvious sin. Its wickedness is its lack of forgiveness and patience. Both of which are hard to see from their absence. The evil is not the poison of the darnel. The accuser planted them to tempt the righteous into a rush to judgment. This willingness to harm the innocent to protect their purity is a shadow obscuring the light of God.

Patient discernment can watch the field without swinging the scythe before the harvest comes. In the fullness of time, the Holy One will gather the people and set the sheep to his right and the goats to his left for how they have treated the least of their neighbors. While the Holy One waits for the harvest, the empire cannot wait. The empire needs a pure field. They cannot allow opposition to them to grow.

Strength has not abandoned the kin-dom. It is the power to hold the sickle and choose not to strike. The accuser’s strength is rejected. The kin-dom’s strength arises from its patient discernment. This discernment must be formed in us, and not performed for the approval of others. The householder does not pretend there is no darnel in the field. He cares for the wheat, trusting it has the strength to grow alongside what troubles it.

Patient discernment does not abolish judgment but teaches it to wait so it is not distorted by anxiety or rage. Premature certainty will destroy every relationship and hollow out the soul.

We learn that true strength is not rash to separate, but patient to wait without declaring a false peace or taking premature action. This strength heals the soul. We restore the world by not doing more damage weeding the field than the weeds would do on their own.

Our work is to tend, not to purify the field.

1

Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43

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Matthew Fox calls it 1+1=3: one tradition meeting one life makes a third thing no one expected. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is that third thing and an invitation to find yours.

The Mustard Seed: The Kin-dom That Begins Smaller Than You Expected

The forty-third saying of the living Christ as spoken by Mary Magdalene:

See how the Kin-dom of Heaven is sown in the field like a grain of mustard seed. The seed of the kin-dom is small; it is the love we have for one another, for our neighbors, and for God. It is the smallest of seeds, but when it is grown, it is the greatest of herbs. The great tree of life grows from this little seed, and in its branches, the birds build their nests and live1.

Mind the wildness of the seed. Love, untended, can become a thicket that chokes the very spirit it meant to nourish. Mustard can overrun the garden so that nothing else can grow. If we do nothing but cast seed and never tend the garden, then the work of the kin-dom is unfulfilled. The kin-dom grows through the healing relationships of its people with each other and the world. To speak the words of love without the actions they proclaim robs them of their life. Dead words harm people. The Living Words thrive in speaking them and doing them.

If the seed is never sown, then the healing of the world is never done. Do not wait for better soil, or for the moment to be right. We have a gift worth giving. If we hoard the seeds, the mice will devour them. The tree remains unplanted; the birds remain homeless. Give and receive with a generous heart so that the seed may be planted and the Tree of Life grown.

The gift of the kin-dom feels small when it is first given. It is a word, an idea, an ideal to reach toward. Small acts of loving kindness go unnoticed. Our community is small, but no fewer than thirty-six righteous people greet the Shekhinah and sustain the world. They are scattered among the nations, unseen and hidden. If they can sustain the world, so can we. Even if we whisper the Living Word one to another, it shall take root in more hearts than the speaker will ever know.

This hidden strength was found also in the garden of the tomb. When the apostles fled the Romans, the Myrrhbearers kept the faith and carried the kin-dom forward. Joanna, the wife of Chuza; Joseph of Arimathea; Martha and Mary of Bethany, the sisters of Lazarus; Mary, the mother of James and Joses; Mary, the wife of Cleophas; Salome, the mother of James and John; Nicodemus; Susanna; and I cared for the body of Jesus. The ten of us were but a few among the many who were in Jerusalem for the Passover. Only the women went to the tomb that blessed morning. I was the first to see the Risen Christ. I was sent as the Apostle to the Apostles to proclaim the glorious message to them that love had conquered the grave.

From these ten, the Word spread to the eleven apostles, then to the world so all might know the power of loving kindness to bring the kin-dom of Heaven here among us. From the moment that seemed to be our greatest defeat, the power of life went forth so all might live God. Our faith arose from an empty tomb, the most unlikely place for the seed to take root. The generosity of Christ and our Father guided us to the tomb that morning. It did not wait for a better time or for a crowd ready to receive it. The seed grew in the darkness so we might feed our souls from the fruit of the Tree of Life.

Creation itself lavishes us with its goodness, so we might all be blessed by grace. Earth does not withhold her gifts, but pours them forth in trust that life knows what to do with her abundance.

Let us restore our trust in steadfast love, which is the life of the kin-dom. When we offer what we have without waiting for it to be enough and without grasping at what it becomes after we have released it, healing flows like water.

Let us heal our souls by learning that the kin-dom does not require our gifts to be significant or impressive before they can plant the seed of the Tree of Life. The small gifts of the generous accumulate, tending the soil of the world until all is restored.

1

Matthew 13:31-32

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Twenty years of Buddhist silence, Pagan earth-wisdom, Christian mysticism, and the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality distilled into a primer for the living journey. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer, foreword by Matthew Fox.

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The Covenant Made Flesh- The Kin-dom Embodied in the World

The forty-second saying of the living Christ as spoken by Mary Magdalene:

When you behold the pillars of the temple, do you think they are the covenant? Of course not. Even Boaz and Jachin reminded us that in Him is strength that He will establish, but they were not the covenant. Neither marble nor copper can contain the power of the covenant. It is not the priesthood, nor the priests, nor the teachers. It is not the seats they claim nor the titles they take. The living covenant can never be written into a rigid and unchanging form. Its laws are love and liberation, both defy control and must themselves be lived. We guard life and the living; the covenant guards itself. It is not the cup that must be used no matter how chipped and cracked it becomes. It is the heart that chooses the cup, the spirit in which it is filled, and the relationship that shares it. If the covenant becomes an empty cup on an altar to be worshipped, the Spirit has departed.

Just as the Word became flesh and walked among us, so too must the covenant become flesh in us. If it is words spoken but not lived, they are dead. The kin-dom is not coming, it is here, now, among us. We must not wait for the kin-dom, or hope that it will one day come. This is like standing in the hot sun, next to a shadow, hoping that soon the shade will come and relieve us from the heat. Step into the shelter and take refuge in it. Why would you point to the shade and promise people it will come one day instead of encouraging them to walk the way to shelter? The covenant is our guide to the refuge of grace.

The kin-dom is among us, here and now.

The covenant is alive in the world. It is not a longing we reach for, nor an order enforced by those in power. The house of prayer is the people who gather to pray; a house of study, those who study; a house of justice, those who do justice.

The kin-dom is not coming. It is here wherever two or three gather in the refuge of the Word. Where life is fostered, the covenant lives. It lives in the balance of giving and receiving that we are called to. Justice, mercy, and a steady heart are the signs that the covenant is alive through the people.

At the empty tomb, I thought I saw a gardener, before I realized it was the living Christ, who is the gardener of the world. He tends the vine through us. We are here to grow and foster life. In this world, we are the living covenant embodying the grace of God in Christ every day.

The foundation of the kin-dom is the covenant’s journey from the heart of God through the ground beneath our feet. We are healed when we stop waiting for the kin-dom to descend from the clouds; it is rising from the soil beneath our feet. In the daily acts of giving and receiving, we make it visible to all the world.

As we live in the covenant, our souls are repaired as we heal the distance between what we believe and how we live. The world is not repaired from above, but from within. A community that lives love and liberation in every relationship and every act of faithfulness who refuses to wait for a distant spring when the Spirit is breathing now.

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You left the institution but not the longing. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who still feels the sacred moving through the world and wants a language worthy of that feeling.

The Covenant at Its Root- The Sacred Yes at the Center of All Things

The forty-first saying of the Living Christ as spoken by Mary Magdalene:

Blessed is the Light that shines within our spirit and the Word that whispers in our heart. If we only listen to this voice, we cover our eyes so we cannot see the Glory and Presence of God all around us. The testimony of our heart must greet the witness of others. In the dance between them, the truth resides. If the covenant prevents people from talking to others within or those beyond the community, it is not the covenant of love and liberation. Our covenant does not exist to serve itself alone, but to be a blessing to all life. If our hearts fold into themselves, then the Word, Glory, and Presence cannot flow out to bring life to all.

Our covenant is deep, rooted in the Spirit and the land. When those roots are tended while the vine withers, the whole plant suffers. The covenant does not demand, it offers, and it asks. It gives life. It does not consume it.

Send your roots deep into our foundation, so you will no longer practice the covenant, because you are the covenant. No longer do we agree to the work, or maintain the covenant with effort. It breathes in all we do. It shapes every experience. It flows through our giving and receiving unseen and unheard, like the breath.

We walk together with the Divine and our testimony as we circle within the song of life. Our righteousness is not a crown, but our nature as a branch of the vine.

Return to the knowing that was within you before you sought to name it.

Recover the living wisdom at the root of the covenant that will outlive every word and language. We are healed as we grow from the ground of being. Our covenant is not created, earned, or maintained. It is lived. It is the bond between the Holy and all that is.

Let us heal our souls in the knowledge that we are held in the heart of creation. May our communities mend the world by inviting all into the dance that has no end around the roots of creation, so all may join in the ever-new creation of the world.

Let our word be:
I have seen.
I am held.
The world is a blessing.
Go and be this blessing to all.

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You left the institution but not the longing. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who still feels the sacred moving through the world and wants a language worthy of that feeling.

Ascension, The Covenant That Receives, Humility as the Heart of the Bond

Forty days after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to his brother James and then to the apostles.1 He walked with them as far as Bethany. There he lifted up his hands to pray, and blessed them.

And it happened, while he was blessing them, he began to separate from them and was being carried up into heaven.

Two of the Holy Ones stood with them and blessed them.

Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem.2

Mary Magdalene stood before James, the brother of Jesus, and the apostles.

The fortieth saying of the living Christ, as spoken by Mary Magdalene:

Christ has gone to the Father, but the Living Word is still with us. Death could not swallow the Word. The Presence has always been with us. The Glory revealed the risen Christ to me and the women, and I bore the message to you.

We are one in him. He is the vine and we are branches. We love one another as he loves us, and we love our neighbors as ourselves. Let us love God with all our hearts, our minds, and our spirits.

We cannot lose our hearts now. The Living Word is always with us, calling us to the Way. Our feet cannot leave the ground. A vine uprooted from the soil collapses and falls. Our offerings are a blessing for all, not a collection for a few. They are not a treasure hoarded in a jar. Our own spirit, our own sight, and the word given to each of us are our own to offer, but not for the community to swallow up. Do not sit and listen, waiting so long and so quietly that you forget how to speak the Living Word yourself. We are called not only to have ears to hear and eyes to see, but mouths to speak and hands to act.

The Covenant of the Way does not rest on any one person’s shoulders. It is shared among all who walk the Way. We give and we receive. It is a blessing to take care of the community, and a blessing to be taken care of by the community. We care for one another as the Holy One takes care of all. The covenant thrives as we take care of one another.

Receptive faithfulness is our partner in the covenant. With her we learn not to push on, only giving, and guarding the borders of the kin-dom that do not exist. She teaches us to open our hands so we might receive the gifts we did not bring ourselves. The Holy One overflows into the world through us.

Let humility be our heart because it does not forget to give or to receive. Our covenant is not maintained through sacrifice and groveling prayer. We are called by Christ to be the friends of God, and friends do not act this way. Our covenant is lived with open attention. Our eyes are open so we are present to what our relationships are actually doing, rather than what we are expected or commanded to do.

We are the disciples at the feet of our teacher, the Living Word who speaks in the silence after prayer. Our souls yield to the power of the covenant to reshape us through trust, not resistance.

Open your hands and let the covenant give back to you.

Christ restored the willingness to accept grace into the covenant. We learn to receive without grasping or falling down before the light, allowing our relationships to teach us what we could never learn from persistence alone.

Let us heal our souls through these relationships, receiving and learning that humility is not weakness, but the opening through which the deepest gifts arrive. The kin-dom cannot be built by givers alone. Receive what comes to you through others with reverence and a thankful heart, and do not resist the change it brings. This is how the kin-dom restores the world.

To receive well is as holy as to give well.

2

Luke 24:50-53; Acts 1:3-12

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The oak knows. The well knows. The land under your feet has always been the first teacher. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer gives that knowing a companion for the journey.

The Covenant That Persists- Faithfulness Across the Long Dark

The thirty-ninth saying of the living Christ:

Maintain the covenant out of love, not because you cannot let it go. If grace dries up, and life is stolen from you, let it go. God is not a tyrant whose relentless demand compels people forward to the point of exhaustion and death. Such is the work of the adversary or a god crafted in the image of the one speaking. The wellspring of life does not steal life from the world. It pours life into the world. Faithfulness is not a punishment. The covenant cannot survive if it doesn’t carry anything worth receiving.

If the heart submits to the darkness, the covenant is abandoned when it most needs to be held. Fear or the silence breaks the bonds in the still of the night before the dawning sun. The heart does not wait to be renewed; instead, it runs from the sun so it cannot see its own faithlessness. It runs to the caves until the night falls again so that the sun cannot reveal how much life has been lost.

Silence purifies the heart. Darkness consumes it.

Faithful perseverance does not keep the covenant with gritted teeth. It roots itself deep in the Holy One. The work is worth the cost of keeping the covenant. The beauty of the covenant purifies the will. It does not compel persistence, but offers the choice to remain through every season of trouble.

To honor yourself and God, let not your will to continue overwhelm your ability to yield to the Spirit. Faithfulness is real and love can be costly, but it never coerces, nor is it self-destructive. The covenant is a lamp in the darkness, not a burden added to your weight.

Holy persistence is an act of living tradition. It is the community standing through the ages, hand in hand for generations, who tended the fire of the Divine through exile, persecution, and silence. It is the witness of all who trusted that what they carried was worth the cost of carrying it.

Hold the covenant through the night and trust the dawn will come.

Life is honored when the steady rhythm of the covenant does not collapse into compulsion. When a shadow is cast over the community or the soul, love is not abandoned but is actively chosen. Trust that love and liberation can endure the dark night.

When you learn to hold the covenant firmly through the storms and the silences of the world without gripping it so tightly it cannot breathe, the soul is healed. The kin-dom is built not only by those initiated or celebrated, but by those who remain faithful through the dark times, the world is restored. When nothing appears to be happening, faith in love keeps the covenant alive.

When you can say: ‘Not my will but yours,’ and in that surrender, the covenant is kept and the world is repaired.

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Matthew Fox calls it 1+1=3: one tradition meeting one life makes a third thing no one expected. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is that third thing and an invitation to find yours.

The Covenant That Reveals- Beauty at the Heart of the Bond

The thirty-eighth saying of the Living Christ:

Do not inscribe the covenant in such beautiful letters that you cannot find their meaning anymore. Its ground is not cultivated by harmony alone, but through the practice of honesty. A lovely garden is a wonder to behold, but if no garden produces fruit, life cannot be sustained. Beauty is a way of living within the covenant, not a way of controlling it.

Do not rob the covenant of its natural beauty, rendering it merely useful, but without joy. While it teaches endurance and shows the way clearly, if it is not allowed to open like a bud to bring delight to the heart or revelation to the spirit, it is like tilling a field with a hammer. A closed heart is unwilling to offer the vulnerability that beauty requires. Let the covenant shine, not just survive.

Mutual revelation shines from the covenant and creates the soul and world anew. It keeps its hands open, allowing it to hold without grasping. The blessings of the covenant do not flood out, and they are not withheld. They live with the people, vibrant, watchful, and luminous, making holy ground where giving and receiving are one. This reciprocity is honored, and the relationship grows into one vine made strong from its many branches.

The covenant is a form of mutual seeing. Each person becomes more fully themselves through freedom, love, and justice. They are not consumed or diminished by it. Relationships should not blur who you are, but set you alight so the community can grow stronger from them. The face of the Holy One reflects from one another so all may see the presence of the One.

This covenant is a way of beholding.
It teaches how
to behold and be beheld,
to hold and be held,
without grasping or pretense.

The covenant is restored when its beauty and transparency are opened for all. It teaches genuine seeing, where both giving and receiving are honored. These relationships themselves become a mirror of the Holy.

Heal your soul by opening the windows of your heart to joy and mutual revelation. The covenant is not a building to be maintained; it is a relationship lived with full watchfulness. A community that comes together in beauty and strength heals the world through its lasting and life-giving dwellings for the Spirit.

The covenant that reveals is the one that redeems.
To be truly seen is to begin to see yourself through the eyes of love.

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Viriditas. The greening power. Hildegard knew it. The forest knows it. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who has ever felt the divine moving through roots and rain and refused to call that feeling anything less than holy.

The Covenant That Holds- The Strength of Sacred Bonds

The covenant is not a sword. Do not wield it against those within or outside the community. When the Word is carved into stone, it dies. Write it on your right hand and your forehead, so that the Word guides the work of your hands and the vision of your eyes. It is not a chain or a crown, but a hammer to break the bonds that hold people down and a pillar to hold up the roof. The covenant brings life; it doesn’t force it into a shape unnatural and unnecessary. If fear of breaking the covenant is all that holds it together, then there is no love in it. The love of the covenant is what holds it together, and love casts out fear. Those who seek to possess the covenant and harden its words turn it into the cage it is meant to break.

Do not dam the flow of the covenant so it can no longer free the oppressed and stand for the vulnerable. If every challenge softens it and every conflict is falsely baptized so it can no longer be discussed, then it has no strength left. The life of the covenant thrives when it is rooted in awe, peace, love, and justice. If these roots are cut to appease others so the covenant no longer welcomes, heals, builds sanctuaries, and liberates the oppressed, it will wither and die. The covenant is more than a story. It is a call to restore the world through the freeing of the light.

The strength of the covenant withstands the weight of the world without becoming rigid or brittle. It does not hold together through force, but through right relationships and the dedication of the community to remain faithful to the way of love.

Strength serves the covenant. It does not dominate it. Do not build new walls around yourselves with laws that demand what the covenant asks for. These walls do not protect you, they fence you in. Instead, let it teach you the resilience to survive disappointment, conflict, and the seasons of distance that will come. Learn the strong love that holds the heart together because it knows what it is and why it matters.

Our covenant is renewed in the wilderness, not in the worship of your own creations. It survives betrayal because it seeks to save life, which is always worth saving. This is the strength that opens the door for forgiveness, because it has been forgiven and understands why restoration matters.

May the bonds between you be strong enough to survive the truth.

Restore wholeness to the covenant. The honesty of strength bears the work of the covenant without destroying the love it has built.

Heal your soul by learning the courage to stand firm in the covenant, which is to live love toward everyone. Communities and relationships are kept honest when they do not break life under the labors of love.

A covenant worth keeping is one strong enough to be honest about what it costs to live it.

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You left the institution but not the longing. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who still feels the sacred moving through the world and wants a language worthy of that feeling.

The Covenant of the Open Hand- Love That Initiates Without Possessing

The thirty-sixth saying of the Living Christ:

My friends, this is the Covenant of the Vine and the Branch which I have made with you.

I am the vine and you are the branches. I do not give life only to my own, but graft the lost and the vulnerable into my vine so all might have life more abundantly.

This way is walked through return and restoration. The heavens rejoice when one turns from the path of harm and returns to the way of love. Those who walk this path restore the world through the acts of love and attentiveness.

Love is the law of the way. Love one another as I have loved you, carrying one another’s burden so the way is easier for all. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, welcome the stranger, visit the imprisoned, and free the oppressed. This is the gospel of the way.

When you gather for the love feasts, join as the one bread of life as the many grains become one loaf. Partake in the bread and wine, remembering me and the works that I do. For I am with you always, calling everyone to the great banquet of Adonai.

I poured out my life on the cross, transforming the powers of the straying world into forgiveness and new life: returning love for hatred and grace for punishment. I showed the way through the darkness of this world. The Light cannot be overcome by the darkness, and the darkness flees before it. I rose into new life, which I give to you as branches of the vine. I share my life with everyone to bring the Light and Word to all.

Do not burden the seeker of the covenant. Graft them onto the vine and allow them to grow in their own time. A loving heart can shower wisdom upon others, flooding the land. Give them time to respond and soak in the wisdom. No one can enter the covenant without the turning of their own heart. Remember, I have followers who are not of this flock. They know my voice but see my face differently. The Word is spoken in the language of those who hear it. If they do not believe in me, but do the work of the way, leave them alone. The covenant calls people together through love. Love is not demanded, nor is it forced on others. Love grows on its own, drawing people together.

Do not let your hands give so much they can no longer receive.

When love is present, but commitment is not, distance grows between you and bonds cannot form. If you are unwilling to grow and be nurtured by the covenant, you will produce pods with no seeds. You may greet the world with open hands, but you never extend them to those in need.

Generous Initiation reaches toward the covenant with open hands. Those of the Way begin from a place of mutual abundance rather than its own need. It does not demand certainty or offerings.

The covenant is the memory of relationships where loving kindness flows, a place where people can return again and again when times are difficult. It is spoken from freedom, and that liberty makes everything else possible.

This is the grace at the root of every lasting bond: prepare the field and grant access to it freely and allow others to tend the field, and return to the work if they wish.

The covenant restores genuine freedom as it welcomes people to the work of love. It teaches the way for people to work together in the common work of God. It does not flood the field or withdraw from it.

It heals the soul by teaching generosity that makes room for what it cannot control. It restores the world because communities and relationships built on loving kindness carry a quality of life that coerced or withheld bonds can never generate.

The open hand that initiates covenant must also be the open hand that waits.

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The oak knows. The well knows. The land under your feet has always been the first teacher. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer gives that knowing a companion for the journey.

The Witness Whose Life Is the Testimony

The thirty-fifth saying of the Living Christ:

Testify to the wonders of the kin-dom, inviting all to the great dance circling the One who Is. Keep Life at the center, and let your steps be light. Woe to those who rush to the center to be seen; they block the Light from reaching the ones who struggle with the steps. The true dancer is the one who holds the hand of the weary. The best dancers support those around them. The ones in the center have neglected their inner life. When in the great dance, the Life flows through you. It fills your heart and keeps your feet on the way. A dark heart stumbles in the dance. The broken-hearted are lifted up by it. The living testimony dances with the beat of life. When it does, it shines with the same light as Life itself.

The dance of life is not burdensome. It can be danced with your children and your elders. Be wary when your labor breaks the rhythm. When the steps become too heavy for the small, the dance has lost its way. If you only dance for the holiday, it cannot heal you. If the holy days rob the joy from the dance, the music is drowned out. The heartbeat of life is constant and always with you. If you only hear the music at the feast, but not in the field, find a way to quiet your life or take the time to listen for it.

The testimony that can be lived on sacred ground that fades on the city streets has lost its roots in the soil of life.

The living testimony is a life whose presence is a form of holy attention. It does not have to be spoken often because it lives in the community through you. It is revealed in how you listen, how you speak, and how you dance through the difficulties in the path. Testimony does not grasp. It holds beauty and hardship with open hands.

The witness does not carry what they have seen as a burden or mission. They live it as the nature of the world. In the heart of the witness, the word becomes flesh. They behold the Glory and live it into the world, until the witness and the word can no longer be pulled apart.

This is the community whose common heart is a living witness to the world it inhabits.

Be shaped by the Glory and grace all around you.

The testimony and practice you have carried becomes the very marrow of your bones. Seeing truly and living truly become one and the same.

When you become a living witness, you heal the gap between what you have seen and how you live. Your soul is restored. The world is transformed not by shouting, but by lives that witness to the life of the world whose existence is a word spoken by the Holy.

Live the glory you have seen, and let that be enough.

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You were not born broken. Fifteen billion years of the universe’s grace says otherwise, and this book shows you how to live from that. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer, foreword by Matthew Fox.

The Witness Who Gathers- Testimony as Foundation

The thirty-fourth saying of the Living Christ:

Do not forge your testimony into a chain that binds; let it be a hearth that gathers. Your witness is not a tower built for your own name, but a key to set the captives free. If the people gather around the speaker and not the Work, the foundation is but a cage.

Do not let your witness be a bell rung in a tomb in your own soul. Greed might hoard the word for itself, believing it gives it the upper hand in the marketplace. A wounded soul that is afraid to share its testimony cannot be healed by it. The word heals together, not alone. The word is the seed of the Spirit. It must be planted in relationship so it can take root and grow. If the seed is not sown, it can never grow to fullness in the living fields of the world. A witness does not stay where they saw the wonder, they gather the seeds of that wonder and go to share it. They plant the seed of awe and tend the soil to keep weeds from overshadowing it. If they do not, their testimony’s power stays trapped in the seed, unable to grow. It cannot help the community if they cannot find it in the garden.

Testimony creates community.

When the witness faithfully speaks, they call others to the word they share. The word does not demand agreement or imitation. It awakens the soul and focuses attention so others feel safe enough to name what they have seen. For others, it opens their eyes so they have the courage to see.

Witness is a foundation. It is not a voice that cries out alone. When the witness works from their courageous heart, they prepare the room for others to enter and build the strength of their own hearts. The community gathered around shared testimony is held together by the living, honest witness flowing through them, not the beliefs crafted into idols, from the clay of dead dogmas.

When the tradition lives in the living words of God, it is alive. It does not live in the sepulchers of words given for former times when the people could not bear to hear the truth. Every generation covers its ears so that it cannot hear the words of liberation; they cannot accept them. Knowledge of the truth grows as the field is tended, so it can bear more fruitful and powerful words of freedom. Some heirloom seeds pass from generation to generation because they have stood for the liberation of all. Every seed does not bear fruit in every generation. Those must not be planted again.

Let your testimony make room for the testimony of others.

A firm foundation restores the purpose of the community: to be a witness to the wonder, grace, creativity, and liberation God fosters in the world. The word of God opens the way, it does not close it. It is an invitation to receive grace rather than a cloud that blinds the eyes.

The soul is healed when the witness learns their testimony is not their possession, but a seed for the field of life. The world is healed because a community that sees honestly and speaks faithfully shines the light of God onto the whole world.

The witness who gathers does not build a monument to what they have seen.

They build a school for seeing.

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Matthew Fox calls it 1+1=3: one tradition meeting one life makes a third thing no one expected. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is that third thing and an invitation to find yours.

The Witness Who Sees Themselves- Holy Self-Knowledge

The thirty-third saying of the Living Christ:

Do not mistake your own face for the face of God. The image of God within you is also in your neighbors, even though their face differs. If you seek the image within and neglect the Glory of the Holy One all around you, you fall into the trap of the Accuser who whispers that only you have access to the true word and light. If you look only at yourself, you turn the world into a mirror, and everywhere you go, you find only your own shadow. You walk in circles, thinking you follow the path, but you are only chasing your own image. Your testimony becomes a witness about yourself rather than what grace may want to show you.

But if you never enter the inner chamber and instead neglect the inward gaze altogether, you cannot see your part in the wondrous grace of the world. You cannot build up your inner strength and testimony if you only point at the well of wisdom, but never drink from it. You cannot witness truly to the wonders you have not experienced within. Everything becomes an unlived mystery.

The soul cannot fully receive what it has not been willing to see in itself.

Contemplative self-knowledge awakens the soul to the radical honesty set before itself and before God. It examines its conscience without harming or justifying itself. It learns to see clearly. The true witness does not whisper lies to their own soul. They stand before the Light without a cloak, allowing the Holy One to see what is hidden. To know yourself truly is to cease the war against the truth.

Knowing your own depths is a form of testimony. If you know yourself truly, you are able to be present with others in a way that those who never looked within cannot do. The examined life does not produce pride. It sees itself clearly allowing the witness to become a window to the divine.

Wander into the wilderness of the soul so you may strip away the illusions that cloud a genuine encounter with the Holy.

Learn to gaze inward without losing sight of the world.

Honestly knowing the heart restores the witness. Learn to look at yourself with the same loving courage you bring to witnessing anything else. Be humble, neither lifting yourself up nor casting yourself down.

Heal your soul through your own clear sight. The witness who truly knows themselves is a lamp to the world, casting the light that brings life to all it touches. The world is changed by your presence, not just by the words you speak.

The witness who sees themselves clearly has nothing to hide or prove.

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Viriditas. The greening power. Hildegard knew it. The forest knows it. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who has ever felt the divine moving through roots and rain and refused to call that feeling anything less than holy.

The Faithful Witness- Enduring in Testimony

The thirty-second saying of the Living Christ:

Do not let your witness become a thundering of hooves that tramples the tender grass. If you kick up the dust of many words, you will choke the silence where wisdom dwells. The one who loves the act of speaking more than the truth of the Word has made an idol of their own tongue.

Woe to the one who loves the sound of their own witness more than the Truth they proclaim. When the act of proclaiming becomes an idol, it obscures the needs of those nearby. The witness stops following after truth and serves the need to testify instead.

Do not seek a better witness lest you blind yourself to the revelation of grace all around you. If you are drawn to the light, dance in its rays. If you stare at the sun to behold the light in all its glory, you will go blind. A good witness seeks wisdom, but does not exhaust itself. The drained well, whose water was spilled on the dry ground, cannot share life with others.

Sustained holy attention shows up whether the world welcomes it or turns its face away. The power of the word is not measured by cheers and praise, nor is it vindicated by the crowd. The fruit of the word is seen through actions that aid all, not through the volume of the speaker. Testimony is given because the word demands to be spoken. Faithfulness to the truth requires both word and deed, salt and light.

Endurance is the grace that heals the heart of its hunger for haste. Do not demand that the world change in a single hour. The Word is a seed; it does not ask the gardener when it should flower, but waits for the Father’s sun. The witness learns to trust the truth and to know its own season. The word is a seed planted that will flower when it is ready. Observing the times and seasons reminds the heart that the desire for a thing to be so does not make it so.

This is the work of the prophets, and you are all prophets. It is not a single proclamation of the word, but the life of faithful witness that returns what is seen and what must be said.

When you bear witness, know the fruit will come in its time.

If you are impatient, demanding the world bow by a word or a command, disappointment awaits. When you learn to rest in the Spirit and wait for the Glory of the Lord, your impatience will be healed. Offer your testimony faithfully without demanding that it is received as quickly as your heart desires.

Your soul is healed when you release the word given to you to the world and trust that faithful seeing and speaking is enough. The world is made new as the testimony of the faithful seeds it with wisdom that grows on its own time. Faithfulness is the water poured in the dark. The true witness is the watchman who speaks to the night, trusting the dawn is coming even when the eye cannot see it.

The faithful witness plants what they may never harvest, and trusts the soil anyway.

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You left the institution but not the longing. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who still feels the sacred moving through the world and wants a language worthy of that feeling.

The Integrated Witness- When Testimony Becomes Beauty

The thirty-first saying of the Living Christ

Do not force your testimony into speech fitted to please the crowd. It is not a performance to be celebrated and bring you the gold of the world or the seats of honor. Let your witness shine from the Light it has. Do not labor over the carvings on the lamp while the wick goes dry and the oil fails. A lamp of common clay that gives light is more blessed than a vessel of gold that sits in darkness.

Do not neglect your testimony, allowing it to remain unspeakable and ignored. When grace rains down upon you, put out vessels to collect it so you might share it with others. It is easy to dance in the rain, or fall to your knees and let it wash over you, but when you collect it and share it with others, the ground grows green. Do not simply be swept away by the flood. Grace is a rain that satisfies the earth, but a witness is the vessel that carries it to the parched. Do not merely drown in the mercy; become the fountain that offers it to those who thirst.

An unshared testimony is medicine denied to the suffering.

Become a witness with a beautiful testament from the heart. Speaking truth with grace is more beautiful than any flowery words can be. Truth is grace revealed with care and clarity so others can see and experience it.

True and tender witness does not flinch, but stands with compassion. A beautiful testimony holds the darkness back without being consumed by it through the Light of the Word. It does not dress up the darkness. When you behold with courage, the work flows through you.

Testimony is a holy craft. Its work shapes desire to act, the desire to give what you have received in a garment woven of light worthy of its truth.

Let the truth you carry find the beauty it calls home.

When beauty is restored to your testimony, without losing truth, you repair your witness. Deliver what you receive with care and craft, not to please others but so others may understand.

When you give the truth a form that the heart can hold, you perform an act of love. The world is not changed by the truth alone, but by the truth made flesh, taking root in the soil of the neighbor’s soul. The world is healed because it is changed not only by what is true, but by truth given form that can enter the heart and take root there.

Beauty is not the veil of the vain, but the radiance of the faithful. To speak beautifully is to speak truly of the One who is Beauty itself.

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The oak knows. The well knows. The land under your feet has always been the first teacher. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer gives that knowing a companion for the journey.

The Courageous Witness- Speaking the Truth

The thirtieth saying of the Living Christ:

Do not let your testimony turn you into the knife of the accuser. The accuser seeks to wound, but the witness seeks to heal. Truth is a medicine; do not wield it as a sword to carve your own name into the world. If your testimony sharpens into a snare, truth is wielded rather than offered. As a sword, the truth can be molded and shaped until it no longer contains any of its original value. The voice of the prophets speaks against domination and control. When truth is used to build a throne for authority or power, it cuts itself off from its source. Prophets who seek to control serve idols, whose mouths cannot speak and ears cannot hear. True prophets liberate all, especially the most vulnerable and the most in need.

Do not allow your witness to fall silent. If you saw clearly and know what you saw, speak truth to the moment. The wicked and the accuser want you to feel like you will drink from a bitter cup. They want your testimony to be swallowed and hidden, so its light cannot shine on others. Do not become a thief of the truth. To be silent when the Truth is mocked is to build the walls of the city’s prison. The one who sees the captive and says nothing has turned the key in the lock.

Do not let the wonders and the truth that you have seen fail to shine in the world.

Prophetic testimony is the witness speaking the truth without cruelty and without evasion. Their testimony is direct and to the point because they have beheld the face of love. Strength is the voice of what they have seen. The prophet beholds the work of love, and their courage carries it out into the world. These two, seeing and speaking, are not in conflict; they are companions preparing the way, one for another.

The courageous witness does not speak from anger or self-righteousness but from faithfulness to what they have seen. The prophet does not perform for the marketplace. They do not add salt to the truth to make it sting, nor honey to make it pass. The light requires no theater. It is enough to say: I have seen.

They speak the word in the field when the sun is high, and they speak it in the storm when the night is long. They witness the fullness and the emptiness of the world. Their honest witness is their faithfulness.

Let truth be spoken from love, not from fear or fury.

When the wonder is beheld and the vision is true, the proper roots grow deep into the soil, and the prophet regains their courage. The witness restores the world when it can speak the hard truth from a place of love rather than anger, when they can refuse the silence to protect all from the harm of others.

When the root taps this courage, the soul is healed and learns again to trust that truth can carry the cost of speaking it. The world is healed not through tender and comfortable testimony. It is healed by the courageous proclamation of the truth of the hour, what is broken, and what the Holy One is actually doing in the midst of it.

The witness who speaks truth, even at a cost, is not alone. The fire that burns within you was not lit by your hand, nor must you carry the heat alone. Speak, and let the wind of the Spirit carry the flame.

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You were not born broken. Fifteen billion years of the universe’s grace says otherwise, and this book shows you how to live from that. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer, foreword by Matthew Fox.

The Generous Witness- Seeing with Love

The twenty-ninth saying of the Living Christ:

Do not let the flash of what you see blind you to the truth of what is. When you behold a wonder, do not chase it; sit with it. Allow it to open you up and yield the secrets hidden in its heart. If you rush to tell everyone, your words will become muddled, and they will not grasp the truth you carry. Take care, lest your craving for the miracle crowds out the Holy One who works it. Those who wander through the wilderness seeking miracles are blind to the miracles around them all the time. The witness who speaks too soon gives the world noise, but the one who waits gives the world light.

Do not let your witness collapse into nothing but doubts and reckonings. While it is good to bring your attention to the wonders you see, wonder is choked when it is scrutinized without ever allowing yourself to feel it. If your attention sharpens into the coldness of the eye, cut off from the work of the heart, then you will miss so much beauty that exists in this world. When the eye seeks only to judge and to categorize, the heart loses the power to be filled. A true witness does not bring a report; they bring a gift offered in love.

Offer your witness as a holy thing.

Contemplative beholding is the loving gaze before you have spoken a word. When Mary saw me in the gray hours of the morning, walking beyond the tomb, she was present and open. Her mind was empty of answers, yet she did not turn away. We beheld one another in our truest, deepest way. She beheld and took in the glory of the words I spoke to her. Only when the dawn broke in her mind and she understood that I still lived did she run to the apostles to tell them.

Testimony is born from reverence, not urgency. The witness does not rush out to proclaim the glories that they have seen. They are filled with the sight and sit with it, receiving it until it is finished. Loving kindness opens their hearts, and they see what is truly there and what has become possible.

The root of all testimony is the ability to receive goodness and beauty as it is, with an open and generous attention. Only then can the heart know what it means. Once the meaning is revealed, the path reveals itself. Do not force the word before the fruit is ripe.

See as an act of love before you begin to speak.

Settle into the root of your testimony. Repair your hearts by learning to receive what you see with generosity before you try to tell others about it. A wonder half-formed in the soul cannot be expressed even slightly by the mouth.

When you learn to be whole before you speak, you heal your witness. Love comes before interpretation. The world is not healed by those who report the light, but by those who have been set ablaze by it. When you are filled with wonder, you do not choose to speak; you become the word.

The truest testimony begins in wonder, not in words.

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Matthew Fox calls it 1+1=3: one tradition meeting one life makes a third thing no one expected. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is that third thing and an invitation to find yours.

The Parent Who Never Left: The Shekhinah

The twenty-eighth saying of the Living Christ:

Where can any go that they will not find God? As the soldiers led our people out into exile, the Shekhinah walked with us. She held us together in Egypt, and showed the way through the desert. She stayed with us in Babylon, never leaving.

The Divine Presence is never absent, though sometimes she is hidden, inviting us to seek her out like a mother playing with her children. She does not withdraw, but knocks on the door every Sabbath and New Moon, reminding us to invite her in.

Eyes clouded with fear, anxiety, grief, or pain cannot see clearly. She is there, holding our hand through it all. No matter how far she may feel from us, she is as close as our own breath.

The Shekhinah does not leave, even when some turn away.

A people may be driven from their soil, but they cannot be driven from the Spirit. You may lose your home, but you can not lose the Divine Presence that is always with you. When you are wounded, it is easy to say, “My wickedness has exiled me from God.” When hateful, it is easier to say, “Your wickedness has exiled you from God.” God forbid. None are exiled from the presence of God. Not one. Even the fallen deceiver turned their back to cast a shadow over the Light, and fell like lightning to the ground.1

Do not convince yourself that God has abandoned anyone. Remember the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep to find the one that is lost.2 All life is precious to God. The father of lies seeks to make people feel lost, abandoned, and alone. It is easier to accept his lies when people feel they have no other choice.

Do not rob yourself of life more abundantly. When people feel alone, they push forward without rest and strive without joy. The soul who believes it is orphaned or forgotten refuses the support of the earth, their neighbors, and the Shekhinah. Worse still, they deny that support to others. The Accuser sings the song of the lone wanderer, masking the hands that fed you and the earth that bore your weight. Aloneness is a wound striving cannot heal.

Return to the waiting arms of the Shekhinah, and she will wipe the clouds from your eyes so you can see all those who have never left you.

Embrace indwelling faithfulness. Behold the Presence of the Shekhinah in every day life. She does not endure in the highest heavens far away from us, but in the soil, in the faces of the suffering, the persistence that endures winter, through the dryness of drought, and exile.

She heals the root of your longing. She reveals that the voice calling you to endure was never a stranger’s voice. It is the Breath within your breath, persisting in you as you persist. It is the indwelling presence of the Holy One living God through us, enduring in us as we endure, persisting in us as we persist.

The Shekhinah keeps the faith with creation ever since the first flaring forth of the light.

Come home to the Presence that never left. Gather the fallen sparks from the dust. Lift them to the Light, and you shall see that the walls of your exile were but shadows cast by your own fear.

When you stop striving toward a god you believed was far off and rest in the God who is already with you, healing flows like a river. This is eternal endurance that you persist from within the Presence rather than toward it.

The soul is healed as the wounds of isolation are tended with the knowledge you are always held. Restore the world not by enduring despite god’s absence, but through the power of the indwelling God. Carry the Shekhinah’s light into every corner of the world.

God does not depart. You have been held from within since the first light flared.

Rest in the Presence, and your feet will find the strength to walk forever.

2

Matthew 18:12–14; Luke 15:3–7

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Get your copy here —> Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer

The Parent Who Keeps the Bond

The twenty-seventh saying of the Living Christ:

Do not let the covenant become a chain that binds you; let it be the garment that clothes you. A bond that strangles is not of God; a bond that sustains is the Law of Love. The covenant preaches good news to the humble. What is this good news? The Kin-dom wraps and tends the wounds of those whose hearts have been crushed. It announces, with authority, the liberation of those held in captivity and the full release for those who are imprisoned. The covenant proclaims a time of Adonai’s favor, and a day of justice from our God, to restore all who mourn.1 The Spirit of Truth is poured out on all people so prophecy and visions may abound to show you the wonders in the heavens and in the earth so that all who live in the flow of Divine Grace will restore all the worlds.2 The law of the covenant is the law of Love and Liberation.

Grace connects people in freedom, not a new form of bondage. The Holy Child must be released to become, not held and forced into the image of others. If love persists, but is not liberated, then grace is not there and God is obscured and hard to find.

If you push the fledgling too soon, or cage the bird too long, you have broken the covenant of the nest. Faithfulness is not the cage; it is the wind beneath the wing that knows when to let go. When the bird forgets the fledgling and keeps going about their life without care for the relationship itself, endurance becomes solitary. They disconnect from those endurance should sustain. They keep the hearth burning in an empty house, but no one is warmed by the flame. They endure in solitude, forgetting that the bridge was built to be crossed, not to be lived upon.

The faithfulness of the Covenant is an endurance that keeps the channel open and doesn’t close it off for themselves. The bond of the covenant is not upheld through control. It is upheld through faithful dependability, remaining available, recognizable, and trustworthy through distance and difficulty.

Persistence becomes inheritance. Our foreparents endured so life and blessings could pass from one life into another. The love of our ancestors is not a hand that reaches from the grave to hold us back; it is a spring they dug so that we might drink and continue the journey. They endured to keep the channel clear.

Our God keeps the covenant not because we earn it, but because the bond itself is sacred.

Endure to keep the flow moving.

Restore the purpose of the covenant. Endurance is not for its own sake; it is the vessel that carries the flow from one generation to the next, from the human to the Divine. Endurance is repaired when it remembers to keep the flow moving from person to person, from one generation to the next, from the human to the Divine.

The soul is mended when the fist unclenches. Hold the covenant with open hands, for what is squeezed too tight eventually dies, but what is held in freedom can endure forever.

A community that endures without the Spirit decays into a monument. They persist as stone, but they no longer carry the flicker of life. Mend the world by building movements that breathe, not monuments that crumble. The ones that persist in this way no longer carry the flicker of life within them. Mend the world by building communities that are movements of the Spirit, not monuments of stone.

The righteous keep the covenant open, not closed.

2

Joel 2:28-32

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Get your copy here —> Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer