Earth is crammed with Heaven
And every common bush
On fire with God.
But only he who sees
Takes off his shoes.
The rest sit around
And pluck blackberries.

   
I am the dust in the sunlight, I am the ball of the sun. . .
        I am the mist of morning, the breath of evening. . .
    I am the spark in the stone, the gleam of gold in the metal. . .
    The rose and the nightingale, drunk with its fragrance.
        I am the chain of being, the circle of the spheres,
        The scale of creation,  the rise and the fall.
            I am what is and is not. . .
                I am the soul in all.
                                Rumi  (1207-1273)

    What I know of the Divine
    I learnt in the wood and fields.
        I have no other masters
    Other than the beeches and the oaks.   
                                St Bernard (1090-1153)

    All things by immortal power
        Near and far
           Hiddenly
          To each other linked are,
    That thou canst not stir a flower
           Without troubling a star.
                            Francis Thompson  (1859-1907)

What the poets and mystics knew, we are beginning to believe.  The “new universe” story, explained by theologians and scientists alike, is challenging us to open our minds, to listen with new sensitivity to one another and to the earth, to open our eyes to beauty and to suffering, and thus, to make choices about how I view myself and the world in which I live.

As you know the physicists of today are carefully explaining how all that is was originally contained in the matter of the Big Bang.  They talk about an emerging universe, one growing over time, unfolding over about 14 billion years.  No longer are they speaking about a universe created at the beginning of time, created by God out of nothing and all at once.  The word “created” stresses the transcendence of God as well as the continuing presence of God; it implies a God who creates and produces the creation from the outside as the efficient cause of everything.  This God rules the world through a plan called “Divine Providence” and creatures are secondary causes in carrying out God’s plan.  Here is implied a certain separation between God and the created world.