In the cover letter, I write, "Creation and Parousia, what humans may see as two ends of the spectrum...." Well, aren't these the beginning and the end? Humans relate to time as linear, and so naturally, we think of Creation and Parousia as points at either end of a timeline. But it's interesting to consider other perspectives. I mean, it seems possible that God isn't constrained by left-to-right, linear thinking.

Two central messages throughout Level III are:

• A plan has always existed in the mind of God the purpose of which is to bring all people, all of creation into the full enjoyment of God in a cosmic communion of love.
• The history of the Kingdom of God has been, and continues to be, written by people all over the world, of all types and all ages.  We are each called to contribute to this history.

The Plan of God is one of perfect communion, perfect unity. It can certainly be hard to grasp such unity when we look around at the world and human relationships. Yet it's very interesting to consider that the three largest world faiths - Judaism, Islam, and Christianity - all share a common, sacred beginning. We are united in the story of creation. It stands to reason that anything we learn about our common beginnings can help us collaborate toward the fulfillment of God's Plan for cosmic communion.

I have been reading a book lately called The Genesis Meditations: A Shared Practice of Peace for Christians, Jews, and Muslims. I liked an excerpt I read (pg. 35) there from the Gospel of Thomas Logion 18:

The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us, how will our end come?" Jesus said, "Have you found the beginning, then, that you are looking for the end? You see, the end will be where the beginning is. Congratulations to the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death."

Perhaps this gives a little insight as to why this year we have tried to study both the beginning and the end together and to contemplate their connectedness. Neil Douglas-Klotz, author of The Genesis Meditations, writes in the Introduction (pg. 9):

We need, at the very least, a new beginning in the relationship between Christians, Jews, and Muslims. In my view, we can find support for this in our shared story of beginnings, rather than in the divisive (and I would argue, more recent) interpretations concerning our endings, which focus on who will be the most favored or blessed at the end of time. As we shall see, for the people who first told these creation stories the "end of time" was the living beginning.