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Friday, February 12, 2010

Creative Event / Created Good

This is from a post in Reflections of a Happy Old Man

Monday, June 12, 2006


"He who binds to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sun rise."
(Blake, Erdman 470)

Only the creative event is to be worshiped.

The Bible is the created good.
All tribes are created good.
Religious organizations are created good.
Theologies, ideologies are created good.

These things are all manmade artifacts.

What is to be worshipped?

The Creative Event!!

Not the Bible: George Fox: "we have heard what Jesus and the Apostles say, but what doth thou say?"

Not a tribe: Joseph Campbell: their chief attribute is the limit of positive affect to members and of negative affect to non-members.

Not a religious organization: Gandhi: "if I ever found a truly Christian church, I'd join it."

So what should you worship: "the Vision of God that thou dost see...." (from Everlasting Gospel, Erdman 524)
Posted by Larry Clayton at 6:32 AM
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4 comments:

  1. Susan J.May 13, 2010 at 3:37 AM

    my knee-jerk reaction:

    What is to be worshiped? Only God.

    Neither the (human) creative event nor the (human) created good.

    Having said that, "kissing the joy as it flies" is indeed sublime. But then so is the enjoyment of rememberance of past joys...

    The created good of the Bible does the most good when it points a person to the present reality, the current creative event....

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  2. Susan J.May 13, 2010 at 3:56 AM

    I've just started reading Malcolm Muggeridge, "A Third Testament" about 6 men "in search of God" -- one chapter each on Augustine, Pascal, Blake, Kierkegaard, Tolstoy and Bonhoeffer. I found a later edition online that also includes Dostoyevsky. The introduction is fascinating -- and I wonder how similar this sentiment might be to what you've written about Blake and "created good" vs "creative event":

    "Between the fantasies of the ego and the truth of love, between the darkness of the will and the light of the imagination, there will always be a need for a bridge and a prophetic voice calling on us to cross it." (Muggeridge p. 14, 1976 edition)

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  3. ellieMay 13, 2010 at 4:30 AM

    More on Created Good/Creative Event is in the post Time/Eternity.

    http://ramhornd.blogspot.com/2010/02/httpwww.html

    Blake was always hungry for the event which allowed him to speak in the prophetic voice.

    Ellie

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  4. Susan J.May 13, 2010 at 5:49 AM

    thanks, Ellie -- the Time/Eternity post helped. I can see where one experiencing "the mere passing through the mind of innumerable meanings" would long for "the creative event" :-)

    and Wieman's descriptions that you quoted certainly would seem to apply not only to internal, spiritual, poetic, literary creative events but also to insights that allow a person a breakthrough on some problem or project in the material world --
    the appreciable world."

    Wonderful! Thanks!!

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