Bible in a Year (BIAY) - Genesis 1

I’m taking a pause on the Psalms for a little while as I am starting a Bible in a year reading with the congregation I serve and also with a group on social media.  It feels like there is some Spirit-stirring happening as I have been seeing quite a few others from very different theological spaces sharing about a desire to read through the Bible.  I think the Spirit is definitely speaking here.  So I’m jumping in.  What I’ll be doing is a (hopefully) daily photograph and reflection on one (or multiple) of the readings.  Some of the readings will line up with each other, some won’t.  So one day I might be in the Hebrew Bible and another day might be in Proverbs (each day has a reading from the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, a Psalm, and a Proverb).  We’ll just see how the Spirit speaks.  

Today was readings from Genesis 1 & 2, Matthew 1 & 2, Psalm 1, and Proverbs 1.  But what just kept stirring for me as I was reading the Genesis passage was what it looks like when my kids and I have “light-painted.”  We take a sparkler, a glow stick, or a flashlight at night and using a long-exposure, we see what shapes we can make.  The reason that this image was in my heart was that there’s a beautiful movement to the creation story of Genesis 1.  Starting in the formless void, a spark comes with light and then that light moves to the sky and then the waters and then the land and then the vegetation and then the trees and then the wildlife and then humans created in God’s own image.  Throughout we read that “God said” and “God called” and “God saw” and “God blessed” and “God made.”   It feels like an artistry of color, light, pattern, shape, and beauty.  

And all of it was good.  “God saw that it was good” (six times) and “very good” (last time...when God saw everything that had been made).  

Again, artistry...beauty...wonder...awe...goodness...