July 8, 2023

Dear Friends:

Today, we bring to you a sermon by our friend, Rev. Dr. Carrie Knowles entitled “Genesis 50: How the World Began and a Search for the Meaning of ‘God'”. Thank you, Rev. Dr. Carrie, for sharing with us!

The Interfaith Peace Project continues its ongoing observance of the International Women’s Day, March 8, by sending you a reflection on the eighth of every month.

We invite you share in this effort by sending any articles or information concerning the voice of women that you would like to share to:

Thomas P. Bonacci, C.P.
[email protected]
925-787-9279

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Genesis 50: How the World Began and a Search for the Meaning of “God”
by Rev. Dr. Carrie Knowles 
Continuing to Honor International Women’s Day

In the beginning, before a universe began, no space, no time

nor the outcry of stars nor the cool dash of rain, no dreaming Earth,

no light nor darkness flowed from the center that lay not yet in Being.

No larger than a man’s hand, the entangled mystery of matter lay

throbbing and dancing, knowing and being

and singing out as the Voice of One!

Matter that was darkness, known but never to be seen,

matter seen, a tiny fragment of the promised all

lay like pulsing waves that touched and shared

their flow that never changed

until its Voice of One, its name unknown,

declared the moment, chimed by all matter

just 13.8 billion years ago,

and so this universe began.

Then spoke the Voice of One! speaking with all matter,

“Let there be Space, let there be Time!”

Dark energy bowed to its future and burst the limits,

set the margins of all Being farther, always farther

from the center of the universe, faster, always faster

than any flow had known, than matter dark or light

had ever reached. The Voice of One saw all Space

was good and knew its destiny and Time

appeared and sped its way. The Voice of One,

the voice of everything

praised the flow of change. The Voice spoke:

it toiled to form the patterns of all matter

seen and unseen, stretching time into its intent to build

space throbbing with galaxies, the hundred billion galaxies

that hold 200 billion trillion stars,

stars that fail in time and fall into Black Holes.

Stars send their light through Space and measured Time.

And stars—our star—drew planets spinning in its orbit

eight billion years after the Big Bang.

The earth praised the seas that crashed and splashed

over their margins, and the land that came to be.

The Voice of One knew that matter dreamed

to weave its power to know, its power to grow,

and so it reached with joy to open

each wave of matter in its consciousness

that longed for life. The dust of stars swirled out

and coated the planet Earth we call our own.

Just 3.7 billion years ago

the living cells first founded their call to BE.

Each cell had heard the call within

and swam the sea and learned to bend and change

and use division to cast new life, lives like their own.

Each cell knew deep changes that would take their path

from sea to land, from green and growth, to limbs

that swam the seas, and limbs that leapt the land

and wings that cut the air and praised the skies—

and all of matter that made up living things,

and all the matter living things could touch and see

were just the least of matter, five parts

out of one hundred—while dark energy

and mass that’s never to be seen by any eye

has ninety five parts never felt by lip or hand

yet flows through all space and flows

through us, the matter that we are.

The Voice of One, that spoke in every wave of energy

that pulsed through time, knew consciousness,

knew sight, knew touch, whenever matter found another,

had reached and entangled who they were forever. 

The living beings we call “human” measure

matter as particles that have halted in their tracks

of flowing waves the moment they are seen—

we are entangled like all other matter

and live a world of deep illusion. 

We see a table and it feels hard at touch—

the motion of its matter is forever hidden

until we’ve turned away. It’s seen US

when we’ve seen IT. We interrupt its flow.

Vibrating streams, the waves of energy

we never see—and consciousness we know

only within ourselves—are out there, throbbing

with their own reality. Our universe inflates,

dark energy is forcng everything that IS apart

and galaxies are parting farther, each from each,

while Earth once seemed the center of all being

We came to Earth as dust. Dust made us.

That dust, that matter older than the sun,

Contains our life and death. Brief as a dream

we live our Self, then turn to dust and dark.

Our dust will find its sleep and wake again

into a world not ours, a space reborn.

The Voice of One that rises in all matter

will sing the stream of time that has no end.