Genesis 1:24–31

This “creator” has a sense of distinction, almost a necessitating desire for distinction by drawing specifics from the wasteland, the wilderness, over which she hovers—noting kinds (fish and fowl, cattle, crawler, and wild thing). And distinct from these, as they are from one another, comes “’adam”, a generic human being in all their femaleness and maleness.

A hierarchical distinction comes forth as G*D is separated from g()d and, especially, from gods. Likewise comes a distinguishing of ’adam from plants and animals over which ’adam is instructed to hold sway.

Even here all is not perfected. Sea monsters and wild beasts are to be plant-eaters, and no notice is given of the nutritional needs of plants. We are not simply who or what we eat.

This is a day of more than calling out elements already virtually present, but a setting loose of connected creations. Animals, after their own kind, are called “good” or “blessed.” Then, at midday we move toward “very good” with an ordering of orders of creation—’adam is to hold sway, to oversee the differences.

In this not-yet full week of Days, there is a premonition or foreshadowing of slipping back into welter and waste, desert and dark. To hold sway, to carry dominion, presumes an equality, at the least a partnership, with that which can call forth in the first place — a state of being not limited by a care-taker, servant, role. A balancing of relationships will be difficult to sustain.

Being granted a specific authority is never as limited as it may have been intended. Centers of authority carry their own seed of destruction as they attempt to bring adjacent and further authority under their own umbrella.

The very act of creation carries the risk of deconstruction within it. The specter of seeing all in its own image is inescapable. Our knowledge-seeking is not just for its own sake, but for its own advantage. Enjoy, for a moment, a good and even very good Day. Prophets will come to remind us of Day Six.

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