"Enter Holy Energy,
Renew the World with Your Power."
It's the comma…
The "Energy Crisis"
It's here, it's there… It's the need to produce more. To conserve more.
To be more frugal. To find alternative sources…
It first arises in our consciousness as a question of resources. As we search
under the ground, or under the seas, in the winds, or in the falling waters,
the gurgling hot springs… we come to the realization that all our power
comes from one source - the Sun. We are rapidly outrunning the way we have drawn
on the sun's energy to supply our energy demands. Our dependence on fossil fuels
increasingly depletes and pollutes our earth. In drawing down our planet's energy
stores we are like the Israelites in the wilderness, who resisted living by
daily manna. We are not living sustainably.
"Enter, Holy Energy. Renew the world with your power."
The Humanity Crisis
But this energy crisis is not just about resources. It is about how we view
ourselves and our place in the universe. For over a century we have been gaining
a new awareness o the energic heart of reality. We are not merely a collection
of billiard balls moving through empty space, sometimes colliding, sometimes
parallelling, sometimes missing each other. We are orderings of energy in a
unified field of dynamic relationships. The goal of our lives is not to impose
our will but to engage the field of interdependencies around us.
We are not merely stewards or managers of the energy around us, we are participants
in it. Yes, we are stewards in the sense of being accountable for our use of
the energy we draw on. But no, we are not stewards if it means extracting all
the energy we want according to our needs. In our anxiety we ask, is there enough
for our needs? Is there manna for tomorrow?
Oh, yes, there is enough
raw energy. The swirling cauldron of borning galaxies testifies to an immensity
of energy that defies imagination. But is it ultimately a chaos of atomic flux?
Is there no ordering, no wisdom, no purpose in it all? The eye of the sage leads
us to a life lived in expectation that there is a divine wisdom in the core
of this immense energy that constitutes our life.
"Enter, Holy Energy. Renew the world with your power."
It is not only an energy that devours our moth-like lives in the fire of God's
breath. It is also an energy of divine Wisdom that creates us as ordered energy.
Paul struggles with this unimaginable energy of and beyond life when he talks
about the variety of our bodies, each of which has a "spiritual" alter
ego, as it were. The resurrection of the body Christians celebrate at Easter
is part and parcel of a vision of creation itself. It is the claim that the
spirit of creation continually enfolds us with new beginnings in the energy
of God's ordering care. Each of us is a singularity of the divine creativity,
yet each is a dimension of the whole.
In our anxiety, fear, and greed we try to deny this. We aggressively defend
ourselves. We set up walls and boundaries to protect ourselves. But this is
not the ultimate reality. It is not the reality where God's Wisdom orders all
things in a field of power beyond our widest imagination. It is the ordered
Wisdom of power that we call beauty.
"Enter Holy Energy. Renew the world with your power."
The Divinity Crisis
Is this immense energy the divine self? Oh, yes. Wherever we touch the energy
of life we touch the pulse of God. Oh, no. The divine is yet another mystery
ordering this energy. But we do know this: How we participate in this energy
of creation is the defining moment of our relation with God. It is the encounter
with the energy of resurrected life. This is the judgment on us today, but it
is also the hope.
With us today is a green cross that represents both the terror and the joy of
this creative energy. Bolts of electrical power play around it like the thunderstorm
of God's renewing rain. Set against the blackness of space, it also bears a
womb of creative energy. Is it leading us into and through the cross? Or is
it the source of an energy coming to meet us?
It is both. It invites us forward to a faithful participation in the energy
of God. It calls us forward to the divine creativity, to the mutual outpouring
of life to life that is holy love.
"Enter Holy Energy. Renew the world with your power."
It offers to us the faithful presence of a divine love that will not abandon
us to our fear. The light enters our darkness and bids us open our eyes to the
generosity of the divine spirit.
"Enter, Holy Energy. Renew the world with your power."
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