TOHU WA-BOHU AND TEHOM

While Caputo is dissecting Genesis 1:1, providing an interpretation of the events, I start to feel stirred and see the reality of what he is saying present in another human phenomenon aside from Scripture.

I'm going to quote him at length here, because it's simply beautifully written and powerfully conveyed. Here is an excerpt from Dr. John Caputo's book, The Weakness of God, a Theology of the Event.



"Elohim begins where he finds himself, with co-everlasting but mute companions: a barren earth, lifeless waters, and a sweeping wind.  Elohim has to play the cards he is given, to work with the materials at hand, after which it will turn out he will even need a rest.  He must work with these elements, with wind and water and wilderness, first to differentiate and then to populate them...The beginning had already begun, before the first verse of Genesis began....
Let us try to imagine the mythopoetic scene.  In the beginning, they are there, wind and waters and land, barren and lifeless, the wind sweeping over the deep, everywhere darkness, like the dark side of some distant desolate planet.  There they are, just there, without a word, the only noise being the heaving of the seas, the blowing of the wind. It is almost as if they are sleeping, as if they are laid out like some great giant, some massive body whose only sounds and movements are the heaving and sighing of a sleeper, and Elohim seems to be just watching them sleep.  Then Elohim was moved to speak to them, and by addressing them to bring them to life, to awaken life in them, to make life stir through their massive limbs the way one calls a sleeper to awake.  He calls them into life; he does not bring them into being, for the whole point is that they were there all along, from time out of mind, in a somnolence deeper and more dreamless than any sleep we can imagine..." 

In the beginning, they are there, as little children at 3 years old. Maybe waking to the sensual touch of someone they were supposed to trust. In the beginning, their small bellies were met by hunger and a mother who was too high to see the multi-colored crayon-based drawings they made for mommy in school earlier that day. In the beginning, this little wide eyed child, maybe two feet tall, had every inch of innocence shattered before her small face in that dark room at night. Every night. Maybe. Fearing these drunk fingers that could show up at any time and do the unexpected to her, as he pleased.  In the beginning, a shell begins to form around her little heart; a dark gaze over his little body.

 In the beginning this child starts a fire in the lawn and gets their first criminal offense on record. This little girl gets pregnant at 16, opening her legs to love and touch and inviting the chance to be held. This little boy fights another, in the beginning, and sits in a juvenile correctional facility with other boys inside their shells, comparing notes and learning about how to start a revolution against the world that so betrayed them; creating a world for themselves in which they take back the power that was usurped from them as little boys in their respective bedrooms or kitchens.

 In the beginning this child becomes a shelter-client and tells the worker to "fuck off." In the beginning, she dodges the case manager's phone calls. In the beginning, "she's lazy." "Can't get it together." In the beginning, everyone knows the consequences of trauma but take it fairly lightly; still standing with their stones in hand ready to accuse these sinners before them.

"I've tried to help you," they charge, "but you need to do something for yourself!"

He's heard this prescription before. She's heard it. Nothing works. Heroine numbs it all. And now a new little boy is in the household, watching officers come in and out of the house. Investigations. Social workers. DCF. DYS. Fights around the corner. This neighbor accuses that neighbor of neglect. Files a 51-A in retaliation for taking her man. Condoms taken off in the middle of sex. Birth control intentionally discarded down the toilet. Mixed desires. For sex and love and lust and children and family. And maybe if she gets pregnant they can do the family thing right this time.

In the beginning.

It is almost as if they are sleeping, as if they are laid out like some great giant, some massive body whose only sounds and movements are the heaving and sighing of a sleeper, and Elohim seems to be just watching them sleep. 


Then Elohim was moved to speak to them, and by addressing them to bring them to life, to awaken life in them, to make life stir through their massive limbs the way one calls a sleeper to awake.  He calls them into life; he does not bring them into being, for the whole point is that they were there all along, from time out of mind, in a somnolence deeper and more dreamless than any sleep we can imagine...


This little boy doesn't need your saving, he was there all along. This little girl doesn't need to be anyone she is not, she is there all along. Halt your prescriptions, diagnoses. Bipolar at 5 years old. Schizophrenic with ADHD. Prescriptions of acronyms--SSI, TAFDC--send the message: "You can't work." "You can't contribute." "You are needy." "You are poor." "You are a victim." "You need me."


The astonishing thing is that God bring being to life.  That is the wonder, and that life that God breathes in them, is what God calls "good,"  which goes a step beyond being.

 What does it take to make life stir through your massive limbs? What does it take for God to breathe in you, to bring being to life, to be called "good," which goes a step beyond merely being? Merely subsisting, succumbing to every new iphone and ipad at the behest of large corporations and in return for slavery to utility arrears and back-rents, and always at the brink of getting evicted, shut off, reported to creditors, taken to court. What does it look like to breathe life into you?

Sochany Seng (not his real name), former gang banger. Life was stirred through his massive limbs when an attorney, an ethnographer and a Reverend asked him to join them on a trip to Cambodia. Nothing was asked of him. No one asked him to be different than he is. An invitation was extended. Someone with prophetic eyes saw a leader in him and a kid with mind-blowing insight and skill. They called it out of him and took him a step beyond being. He never looked back.

Maria DelValle (not her real name). Crossed the border into to the United States with her family's life savings and only a 3rd grade education. No English. No status. No papers. Just needing to feed her children. Someone asked her to be an usher at a church; to lead the prayer group because she prays powerfully; to arrange the flowers because she has an eye for it. No one asked her to get a degree. No one asked her to attend a class. No one asked her to change. They saw her beauty and invited her to practice it. Life was stirred into her, as evidenced by her glowing face. Former slave to a system now a contributor to society.

Elohim begins where he finds himself, with co-everlasting but mute companions: a barren earth, lifeless waters, and a sweeping wind.  Elohim has to play the cards he is given, to work with the materials at hand, after which it will turn out he will even need a rest.  He must work with these elements, with wind and water and wilderness, first to differentiate and then to populate them...The beginning had already begun, before the first verse of Genesis began....