Creation, God, and Immortality(a sermon delivered at the Hamburg Unitarian Universalist Church on January 26, 2003) I found god in the corn fields of Indiana. No, I didn’t hear Shoeless Joe Jackson telling me to build a baseball diamond. While I could see corn fields from the diamonds where I played as a kid, I never once played baseball in a corn field. No. My epiphany came while driving past the corn to and from work. You see, we lived in the small town of Boswell, Indiana up until about 6 years ago. And by small I mean we had a grocery store (not a supermarket, but a grocery store) and a pizza parlor. That’s it. We didn’t even have a gas station. We had to drive ten miles to fill up our car. Obviously, being in Indiana, Boswell was surrounded by corn fields, and Daneen and I had to drive past roughly 30 miles of corn every day to and from work. That’s an hour a day we stared at corn. For four years! Now, I grew up around corn in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And while Fort Wayne may be a more thriving metropolis than Boswell, believe me, wherever you go in Indiana, you can’t get away from the corn. But, I had never really given it a first thought, let alone a second thought. It was great on the cob (and cheap as dirt in Indiana, let me tell you). But, I never ascribed any religious significance to it. I hardly attributed any nutritious significance to it. I was a kid. Corn tasted good. And it stuck in my teeth. That’s all I needed to know. But, driving past the corn fields day in and day out, five days a week, 52 weeks a year, had an effect on me as an adult. You see, right now, in Indiana, the fields look just like the fields do here. They’re covered in snow and bordered by rusty fences and bare trees. You might see an occasional deer in the fields (unless you’re 15 and sitting in a tree with a rifle waiting for one while your entire body freezes). Otherwise, the fields are lifeless. But, then something amazing happens. Spring comes. The farmers plant the corn and within a few weeks, the stalks push through the brown soil and begin reaching for the sun. By June, the fields are awash in a wave of green, and by July, the stalks really are as high as an elephant’s eye. It was sometime in July about seven years ago that I found God in one of those corn fields. You see, I finally realized what a miracle corn was. In just a few short months, a single kernel of corn becomes an eight foot stalk with a dozen or more cobs full of kernels. And what does this little kernel need to grow? Sun. Water. And some nutrients from the soil. Sure, the farmer cares for the corn. He adds fertilizer to keep the soil rich in nutrients; waters the corn during hot, dry days; and sprays the fields with pesticides to keep bugs from eating the kernels. But that didn’t diminish the magnitude of this miracle for me. Corn can grow all by itself. In fact, the kernels it produces aren’t really meant for us. They’re the corn’s attempt to prolong its life. To procreate. To attain immortality. It dawned on me that day, that creation is the fundamental godly act. And every act of creation is a miracle. Sure a corn scientist (and yes, they do have those in Indiana) could tell me exactly how the corn can grow so exponentially large so quickly, but that doesn’t diminish the awe I feel when I compare a kernel of corn to a mature corn stalk. Sun. Water. Soil…Three months! It still amazes me. Since that time, I’ve thought a lot more about the creative act. As I said, I now believe that creation is the fundamental godly act. A baby is no less amazing than a kernel of corn, right? Sure it takes a lot longer for that baby to grow up into something useful (I’m still waiting for my boys to be old enough to mow the lawn for me). But children are a miracle. We all know this. And when we make a baby, we are performing a miracle. We are using the creative act to attain some measure of immortality. We are playing at being god. This leap toward immortality and the divine through creation is not all that original an idea. The word inspiration itself is based on a Greek word meaning “The God within.” Socrates wrote that inspired thoughts originate with the gods, ideas coming not when a person is rational, but when he or she is “beside himself” and “bereft of his senses.” He believed that the gods take away reason before bestowing the gift of inspiration, so thinking might actually prevent the reception of divinely inspired thought. Now, I don’t really believe I have to give up rational thought to become inspired, but I can attest to something similar in my own writing. Before I write anything, I plan, and I research, and I outline. But when it comes time to write, my best work comes when I leave all that rational preparation behind and strike out in a direction that just feels right. I had all sorts of tangents planned for this sermon, like how my upbringing in the Lutheran Church left me unprepared to accept god in a cornfield. But those things got left behind in the inspired rush of writing. This also happens in my fiction. I was on a panel of writers recently and I was asked “where does the inspiration for your characters come from?” You see, the cliché is that you can only write what you know. And I was prepared to answer that all of the experiences in my life contribute to the rich tapestry of my writing (at least I hope it’s a rich tapestry and not some knock-off from Sears). But I realized that when the words are flowing, the characters seem to be acting on their own. At that moment, there is something more happening inside me—something I cannot explain through talent, knowledge, or life-experience. Because, let’s face it, I can honestly say that I have no direct experience in decapitating monsters or wielding great mystical powers in a realm of magic. So, where does inspiration come from? The Greeks thought it came from the gods through the muses. These nine ladies of the arts presided over everything from poetry and music to dance, astronomy, and even astrology. But poetry was obviously the most important pursuit to the Greeks, for five of the nine muses laid claim to dominion over some form of poetry. Calliope was the muse of epic poetry. Clio was the muse of historical poetry. Both Erato and Euterpe were muses of lyric poetry. And Thalia was the muse for pastoral poetry. The muses were so important to Greek society that it was common practice for ancient schools to have a shrine to the Muses called “mouseion.” This is the source of the modern word: Museum. In fact, the famous Museum of Alexandria, founded by Ptolemy I, was a temple dedicated to the Muses. It was also customary for poets and storytellers to invoke the inspiration and protection of the muses before reciting their work. One such invocation goes something like this: “Hail to the muses, and may your light shine through us.” This metaphor of god shining through us like a light is often seen in modern religious litany. Our own chalice is a symbol of the divine light that we light each week as a “beacon of hope” and a “sign of our quest for truth and meaning.” I have to admit that I prefer this imagery over Socrates’s inspiration as the breath of god. I’m not yet ready to concede that when we create something of lasting beauty, we are but a conduit for God. Socrates wrote “So I soon made up my mind about the poets too; I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled them to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.” So, according to Socrates, I not only have to give up my free will, but my intellect as well, in order to receive inspiration. I see the creative act more as an attempt to touch some part of the divine in a quest for truth, beauty, and meaning. Henry David Thoreau had a wonderful take on inspiration. He said: “The poet’s body even is not fed like other men’s, but he sometimes tastes the genuine nectar and ambrosia of the gods, and lives a divine life. By the healthful and invigorating thrills of inspiration his life is preserved to a serene old age.” Now, you may be asking yourself at this point, “what does all this have to do with corn?” Well, it is my belief that the creative act is the essence of the divine. That when we create anything that is intended to outlive ourselves, we are not only striving for immortality, we are, in fact, searching for a piece of divinity, or as Thoreau said, getting a taste of the nectar of the gods. Every mythology and every religion begins with the act of creation. God created the world in seven days. He made light shine down upon the world, and He created man, woman, and all the animals. Odin and his two brothers Ve and Vili, killed the frost Giant Ymir and created the world from his body. Glooscap tamed the winds, created the landscape, and obtained food for the Great Lake Algonquins before traveling to the west to make arrows in preparation for the battle of the last day. The Egyptians have several creation myths. One of these states that the world began as a swirling watery chaos. From this chaos arose Atum, later identified with Ra, who was the sun god of Heliopolis. Atum created himself out of thought and will. Being alone, Atum mated with his shadow to create two children: Shu, god of air and Tefnut, goddess of water. When his children became lost in the chaos, Atum searched for them, and upon finding them wept tears of joy. Everywhere the tears touched the ground, men grew. Shu and Tefnut then gave birth to Geb, the earth, and Nut, the sky. Geb and Nut gave birth to Osiris, Horus, Set, Isis, and Nepthys. Other than the myth of the hero, the creation myth is the most powerful and important story in every culture. We all want to know where we came from. Even much of modern science is devoted to unlocking the mysteries of creation. The Big Bang theory is just a modern-day creation myth – an attempt to explain the beginning of the universe. We have even mapped the human genome and are on the verge of doing what only gods have done before – create human life. Now, I’m not going to go into the ethics of cloning. But it is a natural progression of this need to create, this need to reach for the divine that we all feel during our lives. So, whether we are drinking from the nectar of the gods, or giving up our intellect to accept inspiration, every time we create anything, I believe we are striving for divinity, trying to take out place among the gods, looking for at least a taste of immortality. Architects build great buildings, hoping that one of them will stand the test of time and become the next Great Wall of China – a legacy to those who built it. Artists create beautiful works of art, using canvas, marble, musical notes, or words because they feel they have something inside of them that they must share with the world. Scientists split the atom, search the heavens, and peer into the building blocks of life in order to answer the most basic questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? And, sometimes, how can we become more like God? Even parents are playing god. Parents have children to make an imprint on the world, to leave a legacy of their time on the planet, and to participate in the miracle of creation. Like the corn, we are all miracles…from birth through death (and maybe beyond, but I don’t have any first-hand experience there either). Everything we do with our lives is a reflection of that miracle. Everything we create, even if not directly inspired by a God above, is certainly an attempt at performing a divine act. The trick, though; the real trick to reaching true divinity through creation is look beyond yourself. If you are creating with selfish intentions, you only get, at most, a taste of the nectar. The truly divine act of creation is the completely altruistic act. I write because I enjoy the feeling I get when I create something. However, I also enjoy the notoriety and other rewards I get for my writing. Geneticists are helping the world by finding ways to combat diseases, but they are also hoping to make a lot of money from one of their discoveries. Even, astrophysicists, who don’t get a lot of fame or riches from their work, are just playing at being gods. And most of them, I would bet, are hoping to become as famous as Einstein so that their names will outlive them, thus attaining immortal stature. And, children. Children are the most basic creative act and our surest link to the future. In the past, children were extra workers on the farm or in the shop. Today, we still put them to work in the home (and tell them that it builds character). And don’t we all secretly hope that our children will become rich and famous so that we can bask in their glory (as well as be cared for in our old age in the manner to which we want to be accustomed)? But children, like the cob to the kernel, really are our future. And, as the farmers of our progeny, we need to care for them, nurture them, feed them, and give them plenty of dirt to play in, so that they can grow up and create their own miracles, their own destiny. I believe that the greatest gift you can give to your children is an education and the independence to use their gifts to ascend above the mundane and touch the face of god. I’d like to close with the following quotation from Albert Camus, the French-Algerian philosopher and author. In an essay entitled “The artist and His Time,” Camus says: “Without Culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.” |
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