Ways to Engage in February

It’s funny how kids generally take a deep interest in the childhood stories of their parents and grandparents. When Grandma launches into a story of life before meeting her husband, or when uncle Jerry talks about what Dad was really like, kids seem to perk up; even adult kids. Psychology suggests that telling your kids stories about where you come from helps them develop a sense of self, a sense of place, and connects them to the heart of a shared story.

Origin stories hold power to shape us. They lay foundations that connect us to personal paradigms for how we participate in the human story. In the biography of Heroes in movies, comics, stories, and life in general, we can typically trace a through-line that runs from the circumstances of their origin story to the successes of overcoming obstacles. Our look at the opening lines of Scripture is an invitation to widen our scope around what might be happening in the first book of inspired scripture; the human origin story.

As we pull apart the opinions of experts in Hebrew and root ourselves in how origin stories were told in the Ancient Near East, our aim is to re:assemble a view of creation that holds the nuance of more than we understand at first glance. We turn together to look at the difference between material and functional creation. We ask whether science is an enemy, a friend, or a bit of both