God's Fingerprint

[Ahimsa]

**There was once a TV program called ‘Life on Earth’ in which the whole history of creation was telescoped into a year. The earth began in January. Around April the reptiles first made their appearance. In September came the mammals. I don’t remember all the intermediary stages, but I know that humans came very late. Homo sapiens, the ‘wise man’ as we like to style ourselves, emerged in the last three minutes of December 31. That means that the whole Judeo-Christian tradition was played out in the final milliseconds of December 31.

I find it hard to believe that God was speaking for the first time in those final milliseconds. St. Bonaventure called the creation ‘God’s fingerprint.’ We’ve forgotten to study this fingerprint because we’re so busy with our theological theories.**

Richard Rohr, Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go.

 

[Gerry_Hunter]

**
I find it hard to believe that God was speaking for the first time in those final milliseconds. St. Bonaventure called the creation ‘God’s fingerprint.’ We’ve forgotten to study this fingerprint because we’re so busy with our theological theories.**

So did the Psalmists find it hard to believe:

Psalm 8

1: O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth! Thou whose glory above the heavens is chanted
2: by the mouth of babes and infants, thou hast founded a bulwark because of thy foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.
3: When I look at thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast established;
4: what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for him?

Psalm 19

1: The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
2: Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
3: There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;
4: yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,
5: which comes forth like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
6: Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and there is nothing hid from its heat.

… for example

I can’t speak for Protestant theologians, but Catholic theologians today haven’t forgotten that, either. George Weigel writes:

The world was sacramentally configured by God “in the beginning” (cf. Genesis 1:1) and still is today (cf. everything around you). What we experience here in what skeptics call the “real world” is a window into the really real world that makes this world possible, the world of transcendent Truth and Love. The ordinary stuff of the world is the material God uses to bring us into communion with the truly extraordinary with God himself.

“In the beginning” was when the clock started to run.

Blessings,

Gerry

PS: I like your signature line. Sure hope you meditate in the manner St. Francis de Sales did, and meditative Christians still do today.