The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw and knew I saw, all things in God and God in all things.
Mechtild of Magdeburg
Thinking about our topic for this week, I was drawn to the creation poem in Genesis One. And the memory that the statement about us all being made in the image of God is a profoundly political one. You see, in the ancient world, when Genesis was written, it was often thought that rulers and kings were made in the image of God. But this was seen as the exception. You had to be special and powerful to be made in God's image.
But the author of Genesis tells us that no, it's not just kings and rulers, it's everyone. No one is left out. And given that we are such a small part of all that God has made, surely it's not just us humans. But all things, as Mechtild declares.
My theme for the year is Kin-dom. The Kin-dom of God. The awareness that we are all, together, part of God's family. No hierarchy. No one better than anyone else. Together in kinship.
We can find God in all things, all people.
Often we are told that we are worth nothing. Hopelessly fallen. That without Christ, God wants nothing to do with us. That seems to me to be profoundly missing the point. We were created by God who declared all to be good.
This video snippet, reflecting on why Jesus came to live among us, talks beautifully of the difference between these perspectives: