A friend sent me this info. I am putting this book on my Christmas wish list.
Advent and Christmas through an Evolutionary Cosmology
by Bruce Sanguin
Its easy to forget that the seasons of Advent and Christmas, as well as our other major festivals, originated in pagan ritual. The descent into darkness, in anticipation of the winter solstice, when the light would once again return, was considered a sacred season. The word pagan simply means country dweller, one who lived close to nature and knew creation to be enchanted by spirit. Im interested in reclaiming this connection with creation as a sacred, evolutionary story that informs and encompasses the sacred narrative of our scriptures.
Looked at through this lens, the season of Advent is an affirmation of the dark mysteries of life. In these four weeks, we enter into a deepening darkness, a fecund womb where new life stirs. Before the great Flaring Forth 14 billion years ago, from which all life began, there was only the empty dark womb of the Holy One. We have a bias against darkness, privileging the light in our tradition. But most of the universe is comprised of what scientists call dark matter. Cosmologists have had to hypothesize the existence of dark matter, because for the universe to exist in its present form, and not fly off in all directions, the gravitational pull of this dark matter is necessary. Creation needs the dark in order to gestate. Advent is a season of contemplation and meditation when the soul, if allowed, falls willingly back into that primordial darkness out of which new worlds are birthed.
Advent has become a season of lights and glitter and non-stop shopping for most of us. The cultural norm in this season is to deny both the darkness and the descent. But our souls long to regularly return to a primordial condition. In doing so we recapitulate the deep darkness of the first creation, the fecund emptiness out of which everything emerges. I believe that we have an intuitive memory of the darkness that preceded every birth that has ever happened: from the Flaring Forth, to the supernova explosions that seeded the universe with the heavy elements necessary for life on earth, to the moment the earth fell in love with the sun and birthed the first bacteria, to our emergence as a distinct yet radically connected species. We have a primal need to go back into the darkness from which all of life is born. To deny this descent into darkness, through excessive busyness, shopping, and frenetic activity, is truly to cut ourselves off from our creative potential. When Mary uttered those five words, Let it be to me, she was assenting to the descent, into the sacred mystery that angels announce in the seasons of Advent and Christmas. We are called to trust this descent into darkness, making ourselves available as the ones through whom a holy birth can happen.
To go deep into the season of Advent is to trust that there are galaxies of love stirring within the womb of your being, supernovas of compassion ready to explode and seed this wondrous world with Christ-shaped possibilities. To enter the darkness of Advent in prayer and in wonder is to approach the dark and mysterious realms where our own creative offering is taking shape. It is to feel the pressure of an evolutionary universe shot through with Spirit, bearing down upon us to consciously participate in the ongoing holy procession of life.
St. Augustine understood this mystery. What good is it, he asked, if I celebrate the birth of Jesus year after year, but dont allow the Christ to be born through me? Are we willing with Mary to consent to the birth of the divine coming through us? Are we willing to actually be a reconfigured presence of the originating Fireball, prepared to be a centre of creative emergence to give birth to the sacred future that is the dream of God? Are we willing, both personally and in the context of our communities of faith, to birth the Christ?
The prologue in Johns gospel celebrates Christ as the creative principle of the universe, and claims that this divine creativity is the light that shines in the darkness. All things came into being through him What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people (John 1:34). The association of creativity with light is an ancient intuition. For Christians, the Christ is the love that fires the sun and keeps us burning, to use Bruce Cockburns phrase from his song Lord of the Starfields. When we celebrate Christmas, we are celebrating both the birth of the historical Jesus, 2000 years ago, and also the birth of the cosmic Christ that is an ongoing event. The Love that fired the Big Bang, that issues in a supernova that outshines its entire host galaxy, and that burns in the heart of our own sun, continues to fire us as we utter with Mary those words of willingness, let it be to me according to your word. What new worlds wait to come into being through you and your communities of faith?
So bring on the Christmas pageants and the wonderful carols. Grab a handful of tissue as your heart opens to the Magi and the shepherds tripping on their costumes on their way down the aisles of your churches to reenact the sacred story. And when that cardboard star-on-a-stick glitters above the baby Jesus, think of it as your cosmological kin winking at you and settling over you as well, lighting you up as a sacred centre through whom the Christ waits to be born.
======================
His newest book:
Darwin, Divinity, and the Dance of the Cosmos
An Ecological Christianity, Woodlake, 2007
In the first centuries after Jesus death, his disciples looked around at their world and found that what was needed by way of response to the crisis of their age was hospitals for the sick and food for the poor. This is what compassion required of them. Mission is determined by the context in which the church finds itself in each new age. I am suggesting that, today, there is nothing more critical than a compassionate response to the plight of our planet. The church must be at the forefront of shifting human consciousness away from an ethic of domination for economic gain and toward a spirituality of awe. ~ Bruce Sanguin
Bruce Sanguin's new book brochure in pdf
I am glad to see more theologians coming into the conversation on science and religion. We have seen scientists like Miller, Collins and Polkinghorne do so. But much as I appreciate their efforts, I often find their theology a little weak.
My impression so far of Sanguin is that the theology is better, but the science may be a bit weak. That is to be expected. These days it is very difficult to be really good in two such disparate fields.
Advent and Christmas through an Evolutionary Cosmology
by Bruce Sanguin
Its easy to forget that the seasons of Advent and Christmas, as well as our other major festivals, originated in pagan ritual. The descent into darkness, in anticipation of the winter solstice, when the light would once again return, was considered a sacred season. The word pagan simply means country dweller, one who lived close to nature and knew creation to be enchanted by spirit. Im interested in reclaiming this connection with creation as a sacred, evolutionary story that informs and encompasses the sacred narrative of our scriptures.
Looked at through this lens, the season of Advent is an affirmation of the dark mysteries of life. In these four weeks, we enter into a deepening darkness, a fecund womb where new life stirs. Before the great Flaring Forth 14 billion years ago, from which all life began, there was only the empty dark womb of the Holy One. We have a bias against darkness, privileging the light in our tradition. But most of the universe is comprised of what scientists call dark matter. Cosmologists have had to hypothesize the existence of dark matter, because for the universe to exist in its present form, and not fly off in all directions, the gravitational pull of this dark matter is necessary. Creation needs the dark in order to gestate. Advent is a season of contemplation and meditation when the soul, if allowed, falls willingly back into that primordial darkness out of which new worlds are birthed.
Advent has become a season of lights and glitter and non-stop shopping for most of us. The cultural norm in this season is to deny both the darkness and the descent. But our souls long to regularly return to a primordial condition. In doing so we recapitulate the deep darkness of the first creation, the fecund emptiness out of which everything emerges. I believe that we have an intuitive memory of the darkness that preceded every birth that has ever happened: from the Flaring Forth, to the supernova explosions that seeded the universe with the heavy elements necessary for life on earth, to the moment the earth fell in love with the sun and birthed the first bacteria, to our emergence as a distinct yet radically connected species. We have a primal need to go back into the darkness from which all of life is born. To deny this descent into darkness, through excessive busyness, shopping, and frenetic activity, is truly to cut ourselves off from our creative potential. When Mary uttered those five words, Let it be to me, she was assenting to the descent, into the sacred mystery that angels announce in the seasons of Advent and Christmas. We are called to trust this descent into darkness, making ourselves available as the ones through whom a holy birth can happen.
To go deep into the season of Advent is to trust that there are galaxies of love stirring within the womb of your being, supernovas of compassion ready to explode and seed this wondrous world with Christ-shaped possibilities. To enter the darkness of Advent in prayer and in wonder is to approach the dark and mysterious realms where our own creative offering is taking shape. It is to feel the pressure of an evolutionary universe shot through with Spirit, bearing down upon us to consciously participate in the ongoing holy procession of life.
St. Augustine understood this mystery. What good is it, he asked, if I celebrate the birth of Jesus year after year, but dont allow the Christ to be born through me? Are we willing with Mary to consent to the birth of the divine coming through us? Are we willing to actually be a reconfigured presence of the originating Fireball, prepared to be a centre of creative emergence to give birth to the sacred future that is the dream of God? Are we willing, both personally and in the context of our communities of faith, to birth the Christ?
The prologue in Johns gospel celebrates Christ as the creative principle of the universe, and claims that this divine creativity is the light that shines in the darkness. All things came into being through him What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people (John 1:34). The association of creativity with light is an ancient intuition. For Christians, the Christ is the love that fires the sun and keeps us burning, to use Bruce Cockburns phrase from his song Lord of the Starfields. When we celebrate Christmas, we are celebrating both the birth of the historical Jesus, 2000 years ago, and also the birth of the cosmic Christ that is an ongoing event. The Love that fired the Big Bang, that issues in a supernova that outshines its entire host galaxy, and that burns in the heart of our own sun, continues to fire us as we utter with Mary those words of willingness, let it be to me according to your word. What new worlds wait to come into being through you and your communities of faith?
So bring on the Christmas pageants and the wonderful carols. Grab a handful of tissue as your heart opens to the Magi and the shepherds tripping on their costumes on their way down the aisles of your churches to reenact the sacred story. And when that cardboard star-on-a-stick glitters above the baby Jesus, think of it as your cosmological kin winking at you and settling over you as well, lighting you up as a sacred centre through whom the Christ waits to be born.
======================
His newest book:
Darwin, Divinity, and the Dance of the Cosmos
An Ecological Christianity, Woodlake, 2007
In the first centuries after Jesus death, his disciples looked around at their world and found that what was needed by way of response to the crisis of their age was hospitals for the sick and food for the poor. This is what compassion required of them. Mission is determined by the context in which the church finds itself in each new age. I am suggesting that, today, there is nothing more critical than a compassionate response to the plight of our planet. The church must be at the forefront of shifting human consciousness away from an ethic of domination for economic gain and toward a spirituality of awe. ~ Bruce Sanguin
Bruce Sanguin's new book brochure in pdf
I am glad to see more theologians coming into the conversation on science and religion. We have seen scientists like Miller, Collins and Polkinghorne do so. But much as I appreciate their efforts, I often find their theology a little weak.
My impression so far of Sanguin is that the theology is better, but the science may be a bit weak. That is to be expected. These days it is very difficult to be really good in two such disparate fields.
