There other day, Tom at Disputations made a comment about the following scripture reading:
The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty Savior;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in His love,
He will sing joyfully because of you,
as one sings at festivals.
In the comments, he wrote:
I was also reminded of a simile I came across recently, that God is to creation as the singer is to the song. If the singer stops singing, the song ceases to be; similarly, God continues to give existence to His creation (as opposed to the old pagan notion that the creator god made order from chaos, and the order survived apart from the creator god).
I like this description. It is radically different from my old view of the cosmos. It links God and His creation in such a way that both cannot be separated. It also puts God here and now, not at a distance.
“How does one seek union with God?”
“The harder you seek, the more distance you create between Him and you.”
“So what does one do about the distance?”
“Understand that it isn’t there.”
“Does that mean that God and I are one?”
“Not one. Not two.”
“How is that possible?”
“The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and his song—not one. Not two.”
— Anthony de Mello