St. Paul's Carondelet Church
  • HOME
    • Subscribe
  • ABOUT
    • What We Believe
    • Visitors
    • Parish Leadership >
      • Vestry Minutes and Records
    • Staff
    • Photos
    • History
    • Art in Worship
    • Tell us about yourself
    • Annual Meeting 2023
  • Worship
    • Order of Service
    • Sermon Archives
    • Holy Week Easter 2023
    • Easter Services
    • La Misa
    • Sacrament of Baptism
    • Leadership+Music
    • Altar Guild
  • GROW
    • Adult Spirituality
    • Children's Ministry
  • Mission
    • Care for the Earth
    • Care for Community >
      • Harm Reduction Discernment
  • Events
    • Art Shows
    • First and Third Thursdays
    • Rent our Space
    • Weddings
    • Funeral and Memorial Services
    • Heigham House
    • Calendar
  • GIVE
    • Pledge for 2023
  • Blog
  • Contact Us

Foundational Stories

11/9/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
One of the foundational stories any culture tells explains how it was created. Think about our founding story as the United States. In ancient times, the political and religious divide didn’t exist. So founding stories were spiritual stories.
In Genesis, we find not one but two founding stories. Both place the creation of humanity within the context of a personal God. Both lift the goodness and beauty of creation and the role people are meant to play.
In the second story, two things are noteworthy: naming and knowing. God creates and calls the Earth-Creature “Adam.” Then the Earth-Creature (that is what Adam means in Hebrew) names everything else. God learns the names of things through the leadership of the Creature, Adam.  Isn’t that AMAZING? 
The Creator and Creature walk the earth together. But the Earth Creature is still lonely. That creature was originally neither male nor female. It was non-binary. God was the intended partner for Adam. But God knew that the Earth Creature was lonesome, so God gave the creature a partner.
Knowing and naming are profoundly important. In our most intimate relationships, we need to be able to do both. Knowing means going deep in shared knowledge and mutual support and affirmation. Naming means articulating and assigning meaning. Are we doing these things with our Creator and our earthly companions? I hope so.
Our founding story guides us. It reminds us that our language is designed for meaning-making and relationship-building. Let’s be sure to use it that way.  As we share meaningful conversations, we deepen our knowledge of one another. Giving sound to the love within our hearts through Jesus Christ, the word made flesh.

---Pastor Rebecca



0 Comments

    Author

    Most of the blog articles are written by our Rector, The Rev. Rebecca Ragland

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    May 2021

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Subscribe to our newsletter and receive a free set of Anglican Prayer Beads and an instructional leaflet as our thanks!
Subscribe to the Newsletter!
  • HOME
    • Subscribe
  • ABOUT
    • What We Believe
    • Visitors
    • Parish Leadership >
      • Vestry Minutes and Records
    • Staff
    • Photos
    • History
    • Art in Worship
    • Tell us about yourself
    • Annual Meeting 2023
  • Worship
    • Order of Service
    • Sermon Archives
    • Holy Week Easter 2023
    • Easter Services
    • La Misa
    • Sacrament of Baptism
    • Leadership+Music
    • Altar Guild
  • GROW
    • Adult Spirituality
    • Children's Ministry
  • Mission
    • Care for the Earth
    • Care for Community >
      • Harm Reduction Discernment
  • Events
    • Art Shows
    • First and Third Thursdays
    • Rent our Space
    • Weddings
    • Funeral and Memorial Services
    • Heigham House
    • Calendar
  • GIVE
    • Pledge for 2023
  • Blog
  • Contact Us