In this season of COVID induced confusion and isolation, I have found it helpful to remember that God continually creates and blesses.
According to biblical accounts, God creates out of chaos and out of nothing. In Genesis (1:1-3), we read that in the beginning there was darkness and God’s Spirit blew across the chaos and called forth light. Then in Second Maccabees (7:27-29), we hear a mother embolden her son by reminding him that God created all things from nothing. When we are embroiled in chaos or the emptiness of isolation, it helps me to recall that we are on fertile ground for God’s creativity.
Genesis is also clear that everything God creates, God also blesses. We are assured that there is blessing within the chaos.
Following each disaster in Earth’s history caused by extinctions, storms, or volcanos, after each fire and flood, and even each seasonal cycle of decay, God resumes creation with what is left. Out of the destruction itself and the barrenness in disaster’s wake, God creates, bringing forth new possibilities and blessing them into fullness. So it is for other-than-humans, which instinctually follow the Creator’s call.
We humans are not always as responsive as the beings around us. For God’s creativity and blessing to flourish in us requires our consent, and to some extent, our participation. God never forces blessing on us; we need to respond to God’s creativity so that it can freely flow.
In this time of COVID chaos and its persistent separation, we can expect both creativity and blessing from God. When we pause to feel the creative breath enveloping us, we notice that we have changed. We have learned from our own confusion and loneliness and now we are called to recognize the chaotic emptiness in ourselves, our families, our society, and in our Earth herself, and to notice how God is calling us, luring us, to participate in re-creation and wholeness for all.
We have been amazed to see how quickly Earth has begun to heal. She gives us hope that we can do likewise because it is not our efforts alone that draw us to creativity and fullness but the very activity of God always creative and blessing who moves in us and through us.
We are invited to join our breath to the one Breath that calls newness to emerge and blossom.
Sr. Linda Gibler, OP, is the Associate Academic Dean and Assistant Professor of Science and Religion at Oblate School of Theology. She is a Dominican Sister of Houston, parish social minister, presenter of workshops on religion and ecology. Her doctoral concentration was in philosophy, cosmology, and consciousness, preaching certification from Aquinas Institute of Theology. She also serves as an Adjunct Faculty at Loyola Institute for Ministry.