Evolution of Religion
by Mother Miriam, CSM

Over the last ten months, the Community has been working with a video producer on an archival video, trying to capture and communicate our ethos and vision. Suzy is Jewish, and we were at first skeptical about this project. A dear mutual friend of ours commissioned her to do this, and none of us thought we would be ten months into the process of editing a documentary-quality video and still not finished. That's a little preview of good things to come.

A sculpture in my office, done by my father thirty years ago, caught Suzy’s attention. Dad called it “Evolution of Religion.” As I shared with Suzy Dad's symbols in obsidian, ebony and vermilion, I realized that I was really giving her Dad’s perspective on our common religious heritage in the kind of reflective spirit that is so much a part of our Lenten tradition of self-examen. If you ever visit our Peekskill house, I’ll be glad to show you the “real McCoy.”

Lent is a time of reflecting on the Ash Wednesday theme of “remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It is a freeing insight. God is the Creator, people merely fabricators, “re-arrangers” of the materials God created. Dad knew that.

He took a lump of God’s creation, a piece of obsidian, black volcanic glass, and cut it in half. The cut became the base and the untouched half that symbol of our primitive understanding and need for God. From the other half of that chunk of obsidian, my engineer/craftsman Dad carefully cut mosaic-sized puzzle pieces to form a Star of David. He polished each piece to varying degrees of luster so that, when he fitted them into the base, the Star of David seemed to grow out of the Rock and gradually come to a high polish at the highest point of the Star.

In the same way, we see an evolving understanding of God and our relationship with him in the Old Testament. From that strange story in Genesis 15 where Abram bargains with God and the covenant is sealed by a smoking pot descending between slaughtered animal carcasses (Propers for Lent II Year C) to the burning bush (Lent III C) and on to “Behold, I am doing a new thing,” (Isaiah 43:19, Lent V C) God reveals himself more and more, until the Hebrews begin to understand the meaning of the Covenant and the faithfulness of God even when they stray from him. However, the true pinnacle of “Behold, I am doing a new thing” is not that polished perfection of volcanic glass nor the height of the Davidic understanding of the old covenant. Instead, it is the new revelation of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Dad symbolized that by carving a piece of ebony in the shape of one of the Star of David points. This point was unique because it seemed to melt and flow around back and through the Star's center, finally forming an oblique cross in the front. When the sculpture was new, I remember many a startled stare because the cross was made of vermilion. Vermilion when fresh-cut is bright fiery red. (Unfortunately, as it ages and oxidizes, the pigment darkens to a dark terra cotta red and today it is not so startling.) The Cross of Christ had to be red, the color of our Lord’s blood spilled upon it, the seal of the sacrifice. Nothing in God’s nature has changed since the days of Abram’s strange carcasses except the revelation that Jesus Christ the High Priest has given the once-for-all oblation for us.

Rock, Star and Cross—forever intertwined. A simple image with much depth. For me as a Sister, having this one piece of my agnostic Dad’s making means even more to me than he could imagine. I see the three symbols representing Jesus Christ, God’s fullest revelation in the world. Jesus is the rock of our salvation, who, in the fullness of time, lived and breathed the relationship of God with his chosen people and then as the great High Priest offered the redemptive sacrifice for us all. It was a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. (I Corinthians 1:23-24)

May you have a blessed Lent learning that the glory of God is to show mercy on us folks who, like St. Paul, try so hard, but do the bad things we don't want to do and don't do the good things we want to do. (Romans 7:18-20)