Day 6 of Creation: Strive to Find Your Divine Humanity

Scripture

Genesis 1:24-31

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Day 6 of Creation: Strive to Find Your Divine Humanity

by Rev. Cory Bradford-Watts

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On day 6 of creation, we finally hear the allegory of the creation of humanity on the earth - but what could this mean for us personally, on a spiritual level? As you know, like with many indigenous and ancient spiritualities, we approach scripture through a symbolic lens which describes our own growth - but haven't we always been human, even on day 1?

In a way, day 6 is the culmination of all of our spiritual explorations of days 1 - 5, which have invited us to and described what this parable believes is a "good" model for spiritual renewal and wholeness of life and peace. A journey that starts with our initial awareness of Divine or spiritual life in our lives (I've seen the light!), and has come to a place where we've started to live and contemplate from the light of God's love (the sun) and the faith that reflects the light from that love (the moon). This spiritual growth is available to all humanity, no matter our religions, and is now describing a state that all humans were meant to know and embody: a true humaneness and awareness of our one shared humanity - meaning that we truly start to accept and express the One Divine Life within that we all share.

The Bible has this interesting method of using the word human to describe things that are good and wise in scripture, and more so, to describe God him/herself! God in the Hebrew scriptures (also called the Old Testament) and in the Christian New Testament as Jesus is repeatedly called "human/person" and "son of man/humanity" (which is another term meaning human or a person). On first glance we can dismiss these terms as either unrightfully anthropomorphizing God ("we only want to think about God as a human because we're human") or just as meaningless terms.

However, there's an alternative position suggested by Emanuel Swedenborg and others: that God is the only true human. This is because all the things that make us "humane" and human find their true essence and source in Divinity. This is true whether that be our wisdom (is that what makes us human?), our useful form, our goodness/humaneness, our ability to communicate, love, reproduce, reflect on ourselves, and on.  

You might ask, but what about the other animals and plants? Don't they exhibit some of those "human" qualities (such as useful form, wisdom, connection, etc.) as well? And I'd have to respond, why yes! They do. Indeed, in a way, all of creation reflects the oneness and infinity of the Divine Person. And so, we do not unduly anthropomorphize God, but as our story says, God makes us in his/her "image, after God's likeness."

So, in a way, day 6 of creation is describing the state we come to when we truly open ourselves to the light of the One Humanity within and let it be magnified through us. This is why we see so much proliferation and life on day 6 as well: through our growing acceptance and understanding of Divinity and its diversity shining in all things (including other spiritualities and religions), we come to a place of finding the roots of our own intrinsic human perspective and goodness. We're getting out of our own way and allowing Divinity to empower us to dispel our inner demons and smog, and now have started to strive to accept the abundance of life within in the full light of God - the only infinite expression of humanity and creation. We see elements of this continued striving in our story through humanity's need to work the earth and lead all of its life to further abundance.

It's also illuminating to note that the end of this seven-day creation story is not the end of our spiritual creation, there's a second creation story right after this one. The 18th-century scientist-turned-mystic Emanuel Swedenborg believed that the reason there were two creation stories in Genesis 1 & 2 is because the first depicted our walk toward finding our intrinsically wise, loving, and serene state - called finding our humanity and Sabbath. And the second describes the growth that occurs once we become truly human and allow our inner-sabbath and love for Divinity to fruit. In a way, the Sabbath on day 7 is both the conclusion of what happens once we've striven to be human (God finds rest within us, and so do we!), and is also the beginning of our next arc of spiritual growth, which I look forward to exploring with you.

But although this isn't the end of our growth journey, it shouldn't be lost on us that the culmination of allowing our intrinsic humanity to shine and embracing it in others is the peace that I believe we all yearn for, one way or another. The Divine pleasure of peace of mind and a true inner-Sabbath is rightfully a goal of many traditions and practices that encourage mindfulness, a compassionate humaneness, and an awareness that we are all ultimately One. This is the root of what humanity was always meant to have, a life in the light of love and peace - one that scriptures say we allowed to fall away due to our self-obsession and attached, distracted, and fearful thinking. Thus, we've been given this Biblical invitation to allow our intrinsic consciousness to open like the sky (day 3) and become rooted in love, faith, and life (days 4 & 5) so that we, humanity, can come back to the garden (days 6 & 7).

Peace and blessings,

Rev. Cory