Standing at the Threshold
A Practice for the Journey and a Gate for the Path
Twenty-Five Years to Find These Words
Prayer was the first Matthew Fox book I read. It opened my eyes to a whole world that I had never seen before. He unpacks Paul’s teaching “Pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).” To pray without ceasing is to recognize that every action we take is prayer. We are the temples of the Living God and our lives are prayer.
I shared this with my husband Brian, and we talked about what this meant for everything we do. As I dove deeper into Creation Spirituality, we asked ourselves, “How do I pray this in my life?” That question has been at the heart of our practice since 2000.
Over the years, we have struggled with a way to explain Creation Spirituality in a simple and clear way when we are asked about our faith. We would talk about Original Blessing and the Four Paths, but we could see in people’s eyes that they wanted a shorter answer than what we were giving them.
We tried many metaphors and explanations over the years, but recently we sat down and came up with something we feel really works. We call it the Four Thresholds of Creation Spirituality:
We are born blessed, not broken, learning again to savor the goodness woven into all things.
We carry wounds, not sins, learning to let go into healing rather than hold fast to suffering.
We are in God and God in us, graced to birth the Christ through all we create.
Nothing that wounds the world is permanent, so we walk with the vulnerable, interfering with injustice, and reclaim the joy of celebrating creation’s restoration.
A Creed That Isn’t a Creed
Each threshold boils one of the Four Paths down to a single sentence with two parts. The first part is a declaration of identity that shows what the path teaches us we are. The second part summarizes the basic work of that path.
This pattern works well for those of us who already practice Creation Spirituality. It reminds us who we are and what we do. We all need a reminder from time to time, and while I still sometimes recite the creeds of my youth, the Four Thresholds give us a way to quickly remind ourselves of the heart of the Four Paths and how to pray Creation Spirituality in every step.
They also work as an easy and quick way to explain our faith to others when they ask. Each Threshold explains who we believe we are and how we act in the world. While there is a lot to unpack in these four statements, they give us a good place to start the conversation. For some, this will be enough to see who we are. For others, they will be invitations to talk more about the faith and life we live.
Born Blessed
The first threshold starts where Creation Spirituality and the Via Positiva (the Positive Way) does, with Original Blessing. “We are born blessed, not broken...” That is it. That is the start of the journey.
Like many of us, I grew up in a church steeped in Augustine’s idea of Original Sin. We accepted John Calvin’s elaboration of this that said we and the whole cosmos are totally depraved. I used to hate myself and everything I did because I was taught that all I could do was evil in the sight of God.
Even if you didn’t grow up in a church that taught this, it has infused itself into our culture. The belief that there should be work requirements for public aid is a result of this way of thinking. Most of the ways we wield the idea that people don’t deserve food, water, clothing, shelter, care, or support, because they need to be worthy or prove they deserve these things, flow from this same source.
Once we see that all the cosmos is created in Original Blessing, withholding those blessings from others is a moral failing. We are born blessed, not broken is the truth of our identity.
What do we do once we see this? We recover the lost art of savor. We learn again because we are taught to be serious and to stop savoring life, even though we can see all children doing this naturally. This goodness, this blessing, is woven through everything in the cosmos. On path one, we relearn the joy of finding the awe and wonder in all things, including ourselves.
The Willingness to Let Go
Creation Spirituality isn’t all sunshine and roses. Even in the first threshold this is acknowledged in the word “relearn.” Here in the second path, the Via Negativa (the Negative Way) we go deeper.
“We carry wounds, not sins...” Each of us is wounded. Maybe it was something in our life or family, an illness we had, an event we lived through. These wounds can distract us from the Blessings of the Cosmos. It is important for us to understand what they are as wounds, not sins. While we go astray, and sometimes suffer from the deeds of others who have gone astray, those stray actions are what are called sin. What we carry in ourselves are the wounds those actions have caused.
If you think of life as a path we walk, sin is leaving the cleared path into the wilderness where the brambles and thorns can scratch and cut us and the snakes bite. Some of us have scratches. Others have toxins injected into us by others. These wounds can be healed with therapy, practice, and changing our ways so we don’t collect new wounds.
“...learning to let go into healing rather than hold fast to suffering.” This is a lifetime practice and has many parts. The willingness to let go of our suffering so we can find healing is the heart of the second path.
Living Temples, Co-Creators
In the third path, the Via Creativa (the Creative Way) we learn to participate in the blessings of the world and give rise to new ones.
“We are in God, and God is in us...” In path one, we learn about our royal personhood and to savor our own lives. On path two, we learn to find God in silence and the shadows of life. In path three, we participate in this relationship as co-creators with the One Life.
That might sound like a big claim, but this is just an extension of living a life of prayer. Once we see ourselves as living temples (path one) and have the ability to hold space for healing and restoration (path two), it is not a huge leap to understand how we can fill that space with wonderful new things: from conversations, to dinners with friends, to art, music, and storytelling. We are all artists pouring the Divine flow into the world.
“...graced to birth the Christ through all we create.” Christ is the Living Word, the creative power of God that creates and sustains all things, and holds the cosmos together. We are the body of the Cosmic Christ, bringing the life of Christ into the world. God is as much our Child as we are God’s children. That relationship is how we live God day by day in this world.
Drawing on the endless wells of grace, we co-create a renewed and living world at the work of the third path.
Joy and Justice Making
Just as there are wounds on us as individuals, our cultures, peoples, countries, and world can also be wounded and carry those wounds through time. In path four, the Via Transformativa (the Way of Transformation) we interfere with injustice and bring restoration to the world with joy and celebration.
“Nothing that wounds the world is permanent...” because all things are impermanent. We tend to believe that anything that outlives a human lifespan is forever, but it isn’t. The world works on the scale of millions of years, the universe in billions of years. It is impossible for us to truly understand these vast expanses of time. All things end, and that too is a blessing. Even the wounds in the world are not permanent, because one day the earth will not be here, but the cosmos will go on.
For us, this impermanence also means that we can change the world for the better, which is the heart of the fourth path.
“...we walk with the vulnerable...” These are the anawim of the Bible, those the system throws down and casts out to increase its own power, fame, and wealth. This is how we know what a group is all about. If they cast out the poor, they only care about their own wealth and not human life. If they destroy the environment, they do not care about life itself. Standing with the vulnerable is how we see the injustices that need to be combated. Justice is equitable, so it should never leave anyone behind.
“...interfering with injustice...” Once we see the injustice, we work to end it because all life is sacred and none should be left out. If we truly believe that God is love, then our life of prayer requires us to end the injustices of the world so the compassion of God is lived in the world. It is impossible to love someone and support their abuse or abuses. Love calls us to heal the oppressed and the oppressor. Justice asks nothing less from us.
“...and reclaim the joy of celebrating creation’s restoration.” Through it all, we have to keep joy, Simcha. Joy cannot be taken from us, only released. Through recovering the lost art of savor in path one, holding space in path two, and co-creating a renewed world and life in path three, celebration and joy flow through our work as we rejoice in our community, families, and friendships. Joy gives us the strength to interfere with injustice to restore the world to a more equitable place.
Through joy and justice making, we transform the world in path four.
Walk With Us
So we want to offer this practice to you. Whether you use it as a creed, a prayer, a motivational exercise, a conversation starter, or all the above, it is a powerful tool to focus our lives and faith through the trials of this world.
I feel a strong resonance with these statements. It only took us 25 years to find these words, but now I feel like I had them in me this whole time. They are the beating heart of Creation Spirituality that I can finally say out loud.
In all four, find the awe of the first path and savor them. They are open with depth to contemplate. They drive me to create and live in the mutual indwelling with God. They motivate me to keep up the work for justice and restoration in the world. I hope they do something similar for you.
Blessed are the Wayfarers, who dance the great spiral of life. May we ever find awe, healing, inspiration, justice, and joy in all that we do. Amen.
Some people pray to a God they no longer believe in because they have not yet found language for the God they do. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is that language, grown from twenty years of walking the Four Paths.
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