{"id":1566,"date":"2012-03-23T10:57:42","date_gmt":"2012-03-23T10:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=1566"},"modified":"2018-07-20T20:37:58","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T20:37:58","slug":"the-rainy-day-marriage-of-creation-and-redemption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/03\/the-rainy-day-marriage-of-creation-and-redemption.html","title":{"rendered":"The Rainy Day Marriage of Creation and Redemption"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Who would have thunk that you could be baptized by a rain storm and saved every day? \u00a0That’s Anabaptist alright- but I like it!<\/p>\n

Garrison Keillor read the following poem by Gary Young yesterday on\u00a0The Writer’s Almanac<\/em>, and I thought it was really beautiful- not just for its imagery, but for how it weaves the act of redemption into the very fabric of creation.<\/p>\n

\n

This is no small feat. \u00a0It is an age-old\u00a0temptation within the discipline of Christian theology to set up competing categories and then attach a value to them- like creation versus redemption, with the implication that creation is bad and redemption is good. \u00a0Of course this is a gross simplification, but the point is that theologians across the centuries have struggled to articulate a theology that holds these two things in creative tension, without elevating one (usually redemption, in the Reformed circles I run in) at the expense of the other.<\/p>\n

My sense is this kind of prioritizing of redemption over creation also happens in the comments our politicians and public figures make, too. \u00a0Take Rick Santorum commenting the other day that he is “praying for” controversial gay radio host Dan Savage. \u00a0If Santorum really is praying for Dan Savage, (as opposed to cynically throwing a bone to people of faith) I applaud him. \u00a0(That Santorum felt it his duty to announce this publicly may be a different story.) \u00a0Santorum went on to say that Savage “obviously had some serious issues.”\u00a0The implication? \u00a0That because Santorum had been redeemed, Santorum- in contrast to Savage, who had not been redeemed, at least according to Santorum’s standards- did not<\/em> have issues. \u00a0Redemption over and against creation, with the result being a belittling of creation.<\/p>\n

All of this to say in a long-winded sort of way…I’m grateful to Gary Young for showing in the form of a poem how creation and redemption can stay married as two equally important partners in the mission of God.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

In the heat of late afternoon…<\/strong><\/p>\n

by\u00a0Gary Young<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In the heat of late afternoon, lightning streaks from a nearly
\ncloudless sky to the top of the far mesa. At dusk, the whole south
\nend of the valley blazes as the clouds turn incandescent with
\nsome distant strike. There is a constant congress here between
\nthe earth and the sky. This afternoon a thunderstorm crossed the
\nvalley. One moment the ground was dry, and the next there were
\ntorrents running down the hillsides and arroyos. A quarter-mile off
\nI could see a downpour bouncing off the sage and the fine clay
\nsoil. I could see the rain approach, and then it hit, drenching me,
\nand moved on. Ten minutes later I was dry. The rain comes from
\nheaven, and we are cleansed by it. Suddenly the meaning of baptism
\nis clear to me: you can begin again, and we are saved every day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who would have thunk that you could be baptized by a rain storm and saved every day? \u00a0That’s Anabaptist alright- but I like it! Garrison Keillor read the following poem by Gary Young yesterday on\u00a0The Writer’s Almanac, and I thought it was really beautiful- not just for its imagery, but for how it weaves the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":461,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180,15,20],"tags":[539,540,531,538],"class_list":["post-1566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-in-politics","category-mission","category-redemption","tag-gary-young","tag-realclearreligion-org","tag-religion-and-politics","tag-rick-santorum-and-dan-savage"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Rainy Day Marriage of Creation and Redemption - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Rainy Day Marriage of Creation and Redemption - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Who would have thunk that you could be baptized by a rain storm and saved every day? \u00a0That’s Anabaptist alright- but I like it! Garrison Keillor read the following poem by Gary Young yesterday on\u00a0The Writer’s Almanac, and I thought it was really beautiful- not just for its imagery, but for how it weaves the…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/03\/the-rainy-day-marriage-of-creation-and-redemption.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fellowship of Saints and Sinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kristina.robbdover\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-03-23T10:57:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-07-20T20:37:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kristina Robb-Dover\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@saintplussinner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@saintplussinner\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Rainy Day Marriage of Creation and Redemption - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Rainy Day Marriage of Creation and Redemption - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","og_description":"Who would have thunk that you could be baptized by a rain storm and saved every day? \u00a0That’s Anabaptist alright- but I like it! Garrison Keillor read the following poem by Gary Young yesterday on\u00a0The Writer’s Almanac, and I thought it was really beautiful- not just for its imagery, but for how it weaves the…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/03\/the-rainy-day-marriage-of-creation-and-redemption.html","og_site_name":"Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kristina.robbdover","article_published_time":"2012-03-23T10:57:42+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-07-20T20:37:58+00:00","author":"Kristina Robb-Dover","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@saintplussinner","twitter_site":"@saintplussinner","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/03\/the-rainy-day-marriage-of-creation-and-redemption.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/03\/the-rainy-day-marriage-of-creation-and-redemption.html","name":"The Rainy Day Marriage of Creation and Redemption - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-03-23T10:57:42+00:00","dateModified":"2018-07-20T20:37:58+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#\/schema\/person\/4c3cdf7104b785db2790c0ea54388e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/03\/the-rainy-day-marriage-of-creation-and-redemption.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/03\/the-rainy-day-marriage-of-creation-and-redemption.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/03\/the-rainy-day-marriage-of-creation-and-redemption.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Rainy Day Marriage of Creation and Redemption"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/","name":"Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","description":"Beliefnet Voices...thoughts at the intersection between life and God for anyone converted, unconverted or under conversion","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#\/schema\/person\/4c3cdf7104b785db2790c0ea54388e75","name":"Kristina Robb-Dover","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dcf\/dcfc687b5670420584dc52026042422ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dcf\/dcfc687b5670420584dc52026042422ax96.jpg","caption":"Kristina Robb-Dover"},"description":"Thoughts at the intersection of life and God from one saint and sinner for anyone \"converted,\" \"unconverted,\" or \"under conversion.\"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/author\/krobbdover"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/461"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1566"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6551,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions\/6551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}