The Beauty of Winter

The land lays fallow, the trees are bare of their leaves and the flower bulbs are nestled in the earth. The sun shines for only a few short hours and it's hot rays barely warm the day. This is winter. The season of quiet, stillness, and darkness. Yet this season is the beginning of creation. Without the cold and darkness of the earth the life within the flower bulb does not quicken and burst out of its seed to show it's beauty in spring.

Like the spring bulbs, we also have the need for times of quiet reflection, inner stillness and the mystery of darkness. Many creation stories tell of God alone in the darkness, the void before form; pure consciousness desiring expression. In the desire to know Itself, God creates. This creation begins in the contemplation of the Divine. "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." (Genesis 1:2) This must be the ripple of thought moving upon the nothingness before form (real water is a form).

Then the sound of creation, the word is song or spoken and light/energy is allowed form. Again the Bible uses the phrase "Let there be light." "Let" not "I shall make" or even a command, but simply "Let there be..." Form is created from the nothingness, out of God Itself, by It's contemplation. Even in stories that show God using a substance such as soil or dust to create, it is implied that God first creates the dust!

At some point in these stories, humankind is formed and in the Christian tradition is said to be made in the image and likeness of God. Since it has already been established that God

preexists form, we can understand that the image and likeness are not physical.
Is the likeness then in our creative ability? We are born out of the contemplation of the Divine, then given choice (the freedom to choose our own creative thoughts.) We begin our own creation in the same manner as the Divine, in the mystical darkness of our own thought. Just like the flower bulb in the soil, we need times of quiet to contemplate, which then begins the creation of our own world.

It is a common statement in New Thought that, "what we think about, we bring about." Our thought is always creative and we are always thinking. We have been blessed with free choice, the ability to choose our thought, when we choose to contemplate love, peace, joy and other positive aspects of the Spirit, we begin to experience more of these things in our daily life. And as we come together in groups, families, work places, nations and the world our collective thought creates. Each of us influences the whole and each makes a difference.

Each of us can ask ourselves, "What do I want to create in my life now?" As we focus our attention and speak our word, we begin the creative process. Ernest Holmes wrote "We should work, not with anxiety, but with expectancy; not by coercion, but with conviction; not through compulsion, but in a state of conscious recognition and receptivity. We do not have to drive or push, but we must accept and believe." We can allow the same creative process that God uses to create the world, to create our lives.

You are powerful beyond measure. The way you use this creative force makes a difference in our world. Be conscience of your choices and empowered by them.

From my heart to yours, Rev. Kris

March 2002

The Beauty of Winter

by Rev. Kris Collins