Did we create God as an evolutionary adaptation?
In recent years scientists specializing in the mind have begun to unravel religion’s “DNA.” They have produced robust theories, backed by empirical evidence (including “imaging” studies of the brain at work), that support the conclusion that it was humans who created God, not the other way around. And the better we understand the science, the closer we can come to “no heaven … no hell … and no religion too.” Read the entire article
It is easy for people to dismiss ideas like this because we know that they are based on faulty assumptions. Its fascinating to me to see how people will do anything to rationalize away the fact that God exists. And of course they do it by starting from assumptions that are based on their belief that God does not exist. “Why do we conjure up gods the article asks?” implying that our religious beliefs are irrational thoughts that are conjured up by our imaginations. Maybe we should start from another assumption. How about we conjure up gods because God exists and there is this need deep within all of us to connect to the living God who created the universe and all that is in it. Maybe we conjure up gods because the nature of God is imprinted on our DNA… maybe it is because we are made in the image of God rather than because we have made God in our image.
On the other hand, I understand the need to do away with some of our reasons for religion. The problem is that the gods we conjure up are sometimes violent, irrational and judgmental. And we become like the gods we believe in. Part of the reason the author wants to do away with religion is because of how often it leads to violence and indifferent loveless attitudes towards others.
Before John Lennon imagined “living life in peace,” he conjured “no heaven … / no hell below us …/ and no religion too.”
No religion: What was Lennon summoning? For starters, a world without “divine” messengers, like Osama bin Laden, sparking violence. A world where mistakes, like the avoidable loss of life in Hurricane Katrina, would be rectified rather than chalked up to “God’s will.” Where politicians no longer compete to prove who believes more strongly in the irrational and untenable. Where critical thinking is an ideal. In short, a world that makes sense. Read the entire article
If this is what those who want to rationalize away God believe it is no wonder they do it.
Why I wonder do we people of faith believe in a god of love, compassion and peace when there is so much hate and violence in our world? Is it because we long for something different or is it because the intrinsic nature of humanity is the nature of God – even though we have rebelled, polluted and ignored it? Our faith should lead to greater engagement in peacemaking, a deeper passion for renewal of the earth and a longing for abundance, peace and wholeness for all. And maybe if people saw we believed in this kind of god through the way we lived and acted, they would believe in God too.
What do you think?
This is the third post on preparing for Lent and our need to stir our creativity and imagination during the season. In some ways it is ironic that our Lenten series is entitled Stop Playing Games because really what we need to do is to start playing games, stirring our imaginations through unstructured times of fun and enjoyment towards God’s work of restoration and reconciliation.
In Restoring the Wellsprings: A Lenten Retreat into Creative Practice, the authors suggest taking an “artist date” each week in Lent.
Once a week, it’s your job to take yourself out to have fun for an hour or two. Do it alone, and choose something that you might not normally allow yourself: an excursion to a gallery to look at art; a trip to a fabric store; a walk in a public garden you love, or have always wanted to visit; a ferry ride to explore the Island. This should be gratuitous and self-indulgent. In short, you are to give up self-denial for Lent.
I think this idea is spot on. The place to start if we really want to join God’s creative work of restoration is not with more disciplines or with more denial but with more time for fun and creativity.
Each moment is pregnant with new possibilities waiting to be born, alive with new beginnings, God’s secrets not yet heard, God’s dreams not yet fulfilled. These were the thoughts that lodged in my mind as I meditated on Isaiah 48:6-8 this morning. So many good Christian people I talk to are afraid that their prayer life will become stale, their spiritual disciplines empty rituals. Some make this an excuse for their lack of discipline in prayer and their lack of adherence to regular spiritual practices. Spiritual practices will become stale and meaningless if we don’t know how to stir our imaginations and awaken our creativity to new thoughts, new patterns and new possibilities.
Tools for prayer are creative opportunities not formulae for success.
In her article 18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently, Carolyn Gregoire shares some interesting insights on how to stir our creativity, but there are also a number of spiritual tools I have found helpful that you might like to consider as Lenten practices. Most of these tools have stimulated my own creativity in times of dry spiritual struggling. They are processes I have used to recreate my own spiritual disciplines so that I can move closer to God and the world in which I live as well as grow my understanding of who God intends me to be.
1. Lectio divina is a particularly fertile ground for imagination and creativity especially when combined with creative acts like drawing, writing and visualization.
2. Visio divina, or divine seeing, is another practice that makes a particularly good creative practice.
3. Doodling is another fun and creative tool – it may not sound very spiritual but it can be made into a powerful spiritual discipline, especially if we doodle with our non-dominant hand. I suggest that before you doodle you ask yourself a question like “how could God use me as an instrument of reconciliation during Lent?” Prayerfully close your eyes and doodle with your non-dominant hand for about 30 seconds. Open your eyes and reflect on the image. Repeat your question and ask God to speak to you. Add to the image with coloured pencils or crayons, allow God to shape it into a meaningful shape. Pause after a minute or so from colouring and ask the question again. Write down what you sense God is saying. Keep the image on your desk or in your journal and continue to add to it over the next few days or weeks.
4. Use a finger labyrinth. Again this is a great practice to do with your non-dominant hand with a very specific question to ask of God as you trace the path.
These are not the only tools that stir my imagination and awaken my creativity – walking in the garden, turning the compost, listening to music, taking photographs and even as I have shared in a previous post – meditating on rocks are all tools that can stir me to new creativity. So here are a few more suggestions.
- Be ready for change. Our lives are like drops of water in a rapidly flowing river. Everything around us is constantly changing. Yet under all of flowing water there is bedrock – the unchangeable presence of God that anchors us and keeps us secure no matter how much everything else changes.
- Live a life of curiosity. Treat everything around you as though it has a newness and a freshness to it. No matter how many times we have looked at something or someone, before we always need to be alert to the newness that Christ brings to each mundane moment and encounter.
- Always be interested in big things. Even when life seems small and restricted because of illness, disappointment or struggle, we can keep our world big by the way that we approach the situations we face. We can focus on the restrictions or we can look beyond them to the new things that God would have us discover.
- Be happy in the small thing. Our expectations are often unrealistic and can be ungodly. By focusing on our own ideas of what should happen we often put the Holy Spirit in a box that restricts what God is able to do. Our senses that make us aware of the fragrance of a rose and the sound or a waterfall are in some ways small and insignificant but it is often through them that we are made aware of the intimate presence of God. It is often our senses that make it possible for us to move beyond our disappointments and the sadness and pain of life.
And if after all of this you are still looking for resources for Lent – check out this expanded and updated list of Lenten resources.
A Series on Lent and Creativity
- Get Creative and Play Games for Lent;
- Five Ways to Foster Creativity in Kids During Lent
- Seven Tips for Creating Sacred Space For Lent
- Let’s Get Creative with Lent
- Let’s Get Creative – Doodle Your Way Through the Lenten Calendar
Godspace Resources:
- Lord Lead Us To Repentance – A Lenten meditation video produced in 2012
- Were You There When They Crucified My Lord? This meditation is designed for Good Friday and does not have music
- Is This the Fast? – A Lenten meditation produced in 2008
Yesterday, in my post on creating sacred space for Lent, I suggested that we don’t need more resources, but rather more time to sit with God and stir our imaginations and creativity so that our Lenten practices enter our hearts and souls and transforms us into the people God intends us to be. We don’t just need to have our own imaginations stirred though, we need to make sure that our children are encouraged to be imaginative and creative too.
I well remember the first Easter that Ricci Kilmer and Eliacin Rosario Cruz celebrated with us. Their four-year-old daughter, Catie, was put in charge of creativity. She had us all cut out crosses, decorate them and then hang them on the doorposts. They hung around the house for days, not just a wonderful reminder of the death and resurrection of Christ, not only of the joy of Christ’s resurrection, but also a special reminder of the wonderful gifts God gives to children and how much we need their input in our lives. For me, it was the most meaningful part of our celebrations.
When was the last time you asked your kids, grandkids or kids in your church family for creative ideas on how to celebrate Ash Wednesday, Lent or Easter? When did you last suggest they have fun planning for the season rather than planning the season for them?
Here are some suggestions on ways to stir kids imaginations so that they come up with creative and meaningful ways to celebrate the season.
1. Perhaps the best Lenten practice you could establish this year is to give kids time to be creative without interfering. Unstructured play that is child-directed rather than parent-directed is rare but it is essential if kids are to develop creative imaginations. I wonder what kids would suggest if, rather than planning an Easter egg hunt for them, we asked them to come up with a new way to celebrate Easter and made sure they had plenty of time to do that.
2. Give kids permission to fail. So much kid activity is designed for success. Failure is something we teach them consciously or unconsciously, to be afraid of. Maybe a good Lenten discipline would be to finish the day by asking your kids, “What mistakes did you make today?” Then share your own failures and laugh about them together. Have some fun.
3. Give kids freedom and space to make a mess and be willing to get messy with them. For some people I know this would be a huge sacrifice, but maybe tidiness is something you need to give up during Lent so that your kids can find the freedom of expression God desires for them during this season.
At one of our MSA retreats, Catie made us all into chocolate tasters. We were each given a small piece of chocolate to savour. We closed our eyes, and sat with the chocolate on the palm of our hand, breathing in the richness of its aroma. Then we got to taste it, noticing its texture, the way it tasted on our tongues and stirred our senses. With much laughter and hilarity, we shared our thoughts. Then we opened our eyes and with relish, licked the now molten chocolate from our fingers. We became kids together, it not only stirred Catie’s imagination and creativity but ours as well.
4. Let your kids imagine their own story. Read the story of Jesus’ time in the wilderness and let your children write or draw, whatever was interesting to them that they remembered, rather than giving them specific details from the reading what someone else found important. Over the season of Lent, go through several stories about Jesus ending during Holy week with the stories of Jesus’ walk to Jerusalem and the story of the crucifixion. Ask the kids to imagine games, and activities to go with each of the stories.
5. Create a sacred space for kids. In yesterday’s post, I talked about creating our own sacred space for Lent. The same opportunity should be given to kids. Use these suggestions to encourage kids to create their own sacred space. What music would they include, or fragrances – maybe some incense or other aromas. I think you will be amazed at the creativity that emerges.
And if you are still not sure of how to encourage creativity in your kids check out some of the ideas I listed last year in Resources for Celebrating Lent With Kids
This is part of a series on creativity and Lent.
Get Creative and Play Games in Lent
Seven Tips for Creating Sacred Space in Lent
Please check out our complete list of Godspace resources for Lent through Holy Week.
Its time to get ready for Lent and over the rest of the week, I will post links to my updated resource lists for Lent. However, I must confess that as I started to work on these I found myself struggling a little. There are so many resources available for Lent – Lenten devotional A Journey Into Wholeness, with a rich array of reflections and activities for the season, Breath prayer cards that also provide a focus on breathing (or purchase the bundle!) and free Lenten activity guide 40+ ideas for Lent and Easter and Hungering for Life. We also have Lent/Easter Prayer cards!
What we need is not more resources. We need more time to sit in the presence of God and stir our imaginations and creativity so that our Lenten practices enter our hearts and souls and transforms us into the people God intends us to be. As you know, our theme for Lent is Hungering for Life. We don’t want to tell you how to celebrate Lent, we want to invite you to stir your imagination and allow the Holy Spirit to inspire you and encourage you to take God’s reconciling work seriously during this season.
The place I suggest you start is with creating your own sacred space for Lent.
A couple of years ago, I started a practice where I burnt the crosses and palms from the previous year to make a pile of ashes that became my focus for the season. Last year, it inspired this prayer and reflection and this year I am asking God to stir my imagination in new ways in order to draw closer to God’s heart for reconciliation within myself as well as in my relationship to God, to others and to God’s creation.
So take some time to create your own sacred space for Lent. Here are some possibilities to prayerfully consider as you spend this Lenten season at home.
- Your dining room table. Eating meals is a holy time. Regardless of how busy you are in the week, make time for at least one meal to be shared with others. Believe me, you’ve got time. You’ve got to make time. And perhaps you can make this a time of reconciliation with those with whom you have been estranged.
- Something you are thinking of throwing out, like my old crosses and palms from last year. Recycled items as a focus for Lent reminds us that God is in the business of transformation and recreation.
- Clean a space for Lent. Spring cleaning was a traditional Lenten practice that symbolized the cleaning inside and out that was meant to take place during this season. What is one space you have wanted to clean up that you could recreate as a focus for Lent?
- Use colour and texture. The traditional colour for Lent is purple but that does not mean that we need to use it. Perhaps there are other colours, textures and images that speak to you about your own personal need for repentance and reconciliation. Imagine ways that you could use these to create a special place for your celebrations during this season.
- Incorporate images. I have a collection of icons, crosses and other images that I love to rearrange for different seasons on the year. Some have been given to me, others I have created, like my Celtic cross on stone from last year. I love to sit with some of these images in front me when it comes time to rearrange my sacred space and allow the spirit of God to help me choose which images are appropriate for the upcoming season. I have found this to provide a very profound experience that nurtures and instructs me throughout the season.
- Bring nature into your sacred space. By now, most of you know that I do not consider a sacred space to be complete unless it incorporates a garden, a plant or even a beautiful photo of a special landscape or flower. As one of the prime ways that God speaks to us is through the created world, I think this is important for all of us to include in our sacred spaces.
- Use your artistic gifts to create something new. All of us have been gifted with creativity and imagination, yet we rarely use it in our spiritual observances. Some of us are unaware of our creativity. Others are unsure how to create with the purposes of God in mind. Prayerfully ask God to stir your imagination to create something that flows out of the unique creativity with which God has gifted you. It could be a poem, a piece of art, a photo, a collage, something you knit, carve or sculpt. Or it could be an entirely new art form that is uniquely you.
I hope you will take time to create your own sacred space this Lent. If you do, I would love to hear about it. Leave a comment below or email me with your ideas and images.
Please check out our complete list of Godspace resources for Lent through Holy Week
Tom and I have been on retreat for the last few days and as I mentioned on Thursday, we drove up Whidbey Island and over Deception Pass. We stopped again at the bridge, which I photographed last year in the fog. This time it was in bright beautiful sunshine.
As we settled into our retreat space in Anacortes, the images of the bridge kept revolving in my mind. Surprisingly it was not the beauty of the scene, but the bridge itself that held my attention and I hope that it will speak to you too. It is strongly anchored on both sides. It stands high above the deep and treacherous waters below. Unlike the pass itself which takes skill and experience to navigate, it can be crossed by anyone.
Find a quiet place to sit. Make yourself comfortable. Take some deep breathes in and out to relax yourself. Spend some time contemplating the image above. Read through the prayer several times. Visualize your life as it has been until now and what you hope it will be for the future. Allow God to speak to you.
What is your response?
What anchors your life in the past? Are these anchors clear or are they shrouded in fog? What could you do to make them more secure?
What anchors your life to the future? What are the hopes and dreams God has placed in your heart? What could you do to clarify those dreams?
Now contemplate this image. Focus on the bridge itself and allow God to speak to you:
What is your response?
The strength of the bridge between past and future depends on its anchors. What are you aware of that has weakened your anchors and made your bridge more vulnerable? Prayerfully consider one action you could take to strengthen these anchors. Write it down.
Now listen to Simon and Garfunkel sing Bridge over Troubled Water. Allow the lyrics to wash over you. Is there anything else that the spirit of God is saying to you?
There are so many faith related and and garden related resources available these days that it is impossible list all of them but I thought that you would enjoy a list to at least browse through and enjoy.
A few U.S. based blogs from a variety of faith perspectives:
My colleague, Andy Wade, posts regularly on the lessons he is learning from the garden. I particularly love what he has done in his own garden to create a sense of the sacredness of God.
- Sustainable traditions posts some excellent articles on Christian faith and gardening/environmentalism.
- Presbyterian Food & Faith Blog is a blog of the Presbyterian Hunger Program.
- Fran Sorin also has some very interesting articles on gardening.
- Morning Altars Art – a place to check out Day Schildkret’s beautiful earth art
- The Kids Should See This also has an array of beautiful garden art to look at.
- Serenity in the Garden is another excellent site with some great reflections on spirituality and gardening.
- Red dirt rambling is a site I discovered recently but have not had much opportunity to explore.
- Northwest Edible Life written by a very funny woman named Erica who lives in Edmonds WA.
More American Resources
For those living in the Pacific NW, Seattle Tilth is a must-contact organization. Their educational classes are superb. The Seattle Tilth garden hotline is also an excellent resource, there to answer your questions, and it is not just for those of us who live in this part of the world. Their advice and expertise can help visitors from around the world.
Seattle Public Utilities’ Natural Lawn and Garden Care website provides a variety of downloadable resources, including:
Others that are helpful:
- The American Community Garden Association provides a wealth of resources and is an entrance into a vast network of community gardeners.
- The American Horticultural Society provides many resources, programs, and events by region.
- For those interested in food, faith, and gardening in the Twin Cities (Minnesota, US), visit the Facebook page created by the Faith-based Edible Gardening Collaborative.
- City Farmer has a veritable treasure trove of information on all manner of urban agriculture information.
- Greenfaith is an interfaith coalition for the environment that was founded in 1992. It works with houses of worship, religious schools and people of all faiths to help them become better environmental stewards. They provide an excellent booklet Repairing Eden available for download.
I love this TED talk:
In Canada.
- The Vancouver Community Agriculture Network is an excellent community garden manual available on their website. It is a good, thorough guide to starting and running a community garden.
- The City of Vancouver Community Services Social Planning Department has a website with an extensive list of resources, links, etc. for community gardening.
- A Rocha’s Community Garden Network (based out of BC, Canada), has lots of resources as well.
Alternatives feeding citizenship has several worthwhile pdfs that you can download:
In the U.K
- The BBC garden site is a good place to start with an interactive map of how to find a community garden near you as well as advice on how to get started, garden with kids and much more.
- Garden organic also has information specific to the UK.
- And of course we cannot forget the Royal Horticultural Society
In Australia
- The Future of Food – a new resource from TEAR Australia
- Gardening Australia is the best place to start with lots of good help specific to the country.
- Sustainable Gardening Australia is another great site that I could spend hours exploring and I don’t even live in Australia any more.
- And here is a list of the Top 20 Australia gardening blogs and websites in 2021.
And just for fun…
- The Drag Queen Gardener has fun gardening content on instagram!
Most of these websites are listed in the resource Creating a Faith Based Community Garden though this is an updated list so enjoy.
This last week I have started getting ready for the garden season. I have just updated the resource Creating a Faith based Community Garden with much appreciated help from Heather Choate, Derek Farmer, Marlena Nip and Joy Geertsen who helped make sure that all the links work. Many of you have shared links to wonderful new resources too, so I hope that you will find this useful for your own personal or faith based gardening. For those of you who prefer the blog I will post some of the resources over the next couple of days.
What Seeds Will You Grow?
Here in the U.S. as so much of the country is still under a blanket of snow, we all like to think about spring and what we might be able to grow. This is a great time to curl up by the fire and drool over all those wonderful photos in the seed catalogues that in your saner moments you know won’t grow in your climate zone but which you just can’t resist when it is too cold to grow anything. This year I have done some research on who owns our seed companies and which we can trust to have organic non GM seed.
Unfortunately I discovered recently that many of my favourite seed companies are owned by Monsanto or Mars. This has meant
Seeds of Change – I love their seeds but someone told me recently that they are owned by MARS incorporated, one of the largest food conglomerates in the world. So though Seeds of Change itself provides ethical seed, non GM products, its parent company has a different philosophy. As Tim Stanton who alerted me to this commented: They present themselves as a warm, inviting, environmentally conscious company, but Seeds of Change has a money-hungry corporate core. Tim goes on to say:
Even though Seeds of Change signed the safe seeds pledge (pledging to not sell genetically modified seed), Mars. Inc. spent almost 400k to defeat Prop 37 (which would have required the simple labeling of GM food so PEOPLE could make informed choices). Seeds of Change had been a New Mexico based company since the beginning (since it started out small and independent) but Mars uprooted it from original place of operations in New Mexico and moved it to Los Angeles, leaving almost their entire faithful New Mexico crew jobless. They even abandoned their warehouse cats in the process –
So if you want to get away from any seed company that is associated with Monsanto, here is a very helpful list that documents some of the companies owned by Monsanto who may be using GM food. Unfortunately I notice some of my other favourites (including ones listed above) are on the list. It also contains a list of those that sell safe seed even though they have not signed the safe seed pledge.
So you may also want to check out this link to where you can research seed companies that have signed the Safe Seed Pledge,
Look for heritage seeds and organic seeds:
There are a growing number of organizations that specialize in heirloom and organic seeds. Here are a few that I have used and would recommend.
For more possibilities check out this list from Treehugger.com which was put together from reader suggestions.
Look for local companies:
The list of seed companies that have signed the safe seed pledge is a good place to start when looking for locally produced seeds.
Here in the Pacific N.W. my favorites are:
I also cannot resist a couple of big company catalogues like the English classic Thompson and Morgan and Burpee which have products I can’t seem to find anywhere else.
I realize not all of you live in the Pacific NW. What are your favourites and what region of the world are they most suited for?
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