In the Beginning God

Genesis 1

“In the Beginning God”

This picture in words gives us a place to start as we meditate on what it means to know God. Earth, our human dwelling place, had a temporal beginning; it is not eternal. God has provided it as a place for the purpose of bringing forth human life. The earth was made beautiful, orderly and good. The creation was to be a place of time. The creation was to be a place of continued flourishing. The creation was to be a place in which human beings—male and female—were meant to take responsibility. This dominion over the earth was a trust, and this stewardship from God helps us understand that what we do with life on earth—how we treat this place—gives us insight to our relationship with God. To be human—in the image of God—means, in part, to be responsible to God for creation given and creation continued.

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Readers of this blog will be generous, I hope, in excusing my “hit and miss” publishing. If I expect people to read what I have written I know that I have a responsibility to publish something on a regular basis. Thank you for reading my blog. I hope it is interesting and helpful. My resolution for this year is to write and publish consistently. 

The entries I make about the Bible for this blog will be at the top of each page. They are comments I have recorded in a journaling Bible.  I have a collection of comments for every chapter of the Bible. They are not meant to be explanatory as one finds in a typical commentary on the Bible. Those commentaries are helpful. My comments, I hope, will be helpful, too, but in a different way. I intend them to be devotional and theological ideas that have come to me morning by morning as I have read the Scripture. Perhaps, they are an insight to how a preacher—as I have been for decades—comes to an idea for a sermon. I would hope that for preachers and teachers who read this blog the entries could become a “starter,” that is they would lead you to your own musings about the text and would give you ideas for a lesson or a sermon. Of course, I pray each day as I read and write. You will, too, if you hope to be guided by the Spirit to an insight that God has for you.

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In the past I have often included a report from the antics or the sayings of my grandchildren. Today’s entry is an observation on the skill I admire in our daughter-in-law’s parenting. One of the children cannot abide the different foods on his plate touching, so Mairin carefully separated the foods that the restaurant had placed too close to each on the plate served to our grandson. As she did this work of love she told the child, “turn your eyes away, please.” Maybe it is her training as a doctor who tells a child who is about to receive an injection, “look away.” I don’t know how she came to the technique, but it worked. Our grandson looked away until his Mom had finished, and he was pleased to see everything arranged properly when he turned back to the plate. Yesterday was Mairin’s birthday. I am grateful she was born, that she married Justin and that she brings to her children and to all of us her love and patience.