Of Co-Creation

In my book The Stations,* an artist is commissioned to create the Fourteen Stations of the Cross.  Each station carries a message for the contemporary world.  The 14^th Station is ‘Jesus Laid in the Tomb’; here the artist expresses the theme of co-creation.  From the book: “Here is the meeting place between time and eternity.  God has delivered the message; Jesus’ work is complete.  The human race must take it from here.  Jesus lived love and unity and demonstrated the desirable side of human potential—what we are capable of—entrusting humanity to carry out the world’s further development.  . . . when we do we become co-creators.”

*The Stations by B. Sabonis-Chafee: available at Amazon

on the same theme:

       THE CHILD IS FATHER OF THE MAN

From parent comes child

Who is destined himself to become parent.

From God comes man

Himself to become as God—

One to other

United in understanding

Through shared creation.

Each still is

But they share a being

Impossible without the evolutionary development.

But that is the completion—

The becoming is painful.

To grow under protective care:

            To have one to give answers,

            To have one to run to for comfort,

            To have one to define limits’

            To have one to forgive mistakes,

            To have one to answer needs

            To have one to see in us value . . . . . .

                                    Childhood and Innocence.

Then to be alone:

            To search out answers,

            To endure without comfort,

            To draw our own limits,

            To be responsible for mistakes,

            To find the means to answer needs,

            To create our own value by our actions . . . .

                                    Maturity and Responsibility.

The aloneness feels like abandonment;

But necessary for becoming.

It is weakness, cowardice, and death

To run back to the protectiveness outgrown.

It is strength, courage and life

To face the challenge alone.

The challenges to be met?

One cannot foretell.

For some they are few;

For others, many.

But the greater the challenges met and overcome,

The greater the one overcoming.

Refuse the challenge

       Deny the worth of the struggle.

              Give no example to those who follow,

                     Destruction . . . . . . .

                           And worse yet,

                                  Responsibility for that destruction!

Refusal, denial, and the killing of hope

Will not eliminate the responsibility inherent in maturation.

There is no choice but to go forward and build,

To find within the self

The ability to become as the One who gave being.

God is not dead

His infinite wisdom sees the necessity

Of Man’s accepting the responsibility

Of his own destiny.

The pain?

            The suffering?

                        The aloneness?

                                    To be endured!

Instead of receiving,

It is now ours to give---

The child must now become the father.