In John's Gospel 3:1-17, Nicodemus is portrayed as a Jew, a smart man of the upper echelon, a Pharisee, a leader who's in control. He prefers darkness, as he comes to see Jesus at night. Jesus tells him "You must be born again to see the kingdom of God." Jesus invites him to see things differently. Funnily, Nicodemus takes this "being born again" quite literally as if it means crawling back into his mother's womb! Jesus tries again, "The wind blows where it wants...so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus still doesn't get it.
     Finally, Jesus reminds him of when the Israelites fled Egypt and were wandering in the desert. They wanted to go back to Egypt because they were unsatisfied with the food the Lord was providing and were being bitten by serpents.  Moses made a bronze serpent and lifted it up on a stick, telling the people they have only to look at it to be healed of the venom. As Moses invited the Israelites to look differently at their situation, what they were going through, Jesus invites Nicodemus to see things, the people in his life, the world in which he lived, differently. It is that which opens one to eternal life, or the presence of God.
     The new TV series called "Cosmos" by Neil deGrasse Tyson begins with how the ancients looked at the world, with the earth in the center under a great dome and the sun and stars revolving around it. The 17th century Dominican friar and mystic, Giordano Bruno, was fascinated by the scientific work of his contemporaries who studied the universe and dared imagine something different. Bruno himself had visions of this universe and spoke eagerly and freely of it, though it was against his religion. For this he was imprisoned and tortured for eight years for heresy then burned at the stake by Church authorities. The episode depicts Bruno being so in love with what he knows is his truth, his insight into the wonder and beauty and expansiveness of creation, that he has a vision of his body fleeing his dirty, dark prison cell and floating upward toward the dome of the sky and right through it into an awesome, amazing cosmos, beautiful beyond description. Full of joy, he rises/dances into space to see the world revolving around the sun.
     Jesus is the New Human who shows us a new consciousness. To be human is to be self-conscious; this also bring us worries about the past, anxieties about the future, etc. We get trapped in our little world, walled in by the way things are. Yet, it may be so simple to see things differently. Creation Spirituality calls us to be three things:  prophet, artist and mystic, and being a mystic means being deeply centered in the "now" and trying to enter into an awareness of and relationship with the Divine. 
     Nicodemus is a perfect lesson with which to transition into Via Transformativa, which comes next Sunday. His story offers us a world-view in which we don't need to cling to our life but rather give it away. We don't need to grasp onto it to survive.  We can give our life, our love. We can transcend time, space, and our body and touch the Divine with our heart. Then we will know what the Ground of our being is. All we've been taught goes against this. But there is nothing to worry about. That is what life is for. To be born of the Spirit is to be born into that life. 

You can become an individual member of Creation Spirituality Communities or sign up  as a participant in the online community for free. Join our online community, Chesapeake Creation Spirituality Community and take part in the discussion.  You can get more information and/or sign up by clicking on the following link: http://originalblessing.ning.com.  NOTE: This website is well worth checking out, with its interesting videos of Matthew Fox and others on different facets of Creation Spirituality.  You'll also find news of upcoming conferences and much more.

Point 5.  By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe.