the prophetic stream
I love that the lectionary brings us back to Genesis, to creation. This morning I listened to Pray as You Go twice through, reveling in the reading of abundance bursting forth and God’s rest on the seventh day. I walked the retention-pond-route, from lake to lake, gazing at the sky, watching the birds.
The prophetic stream is a divinely initiated energy that interacts with each form within creation to release its potential.*
In our leadership team, we have been talking about strengthening, renewing, and creating new teams. Delegating and empowering. This is a process of imagining possibilities and potential that reminds me of Nahum Ward-Lev’s description of creation. He speaks of a “liberating energy” that he calls the “prophetic stream”:
this flow, rooted in the divine presence, functions in the natural world just as the prophetic word functions in human society. It challenges the limitations of existing structures in order to bring forth new possibilities.
The image of God releasing the potential of creation is powerful, modeling for us how to care for each other and the world. The work of God was not to personally form each creeping, crawling entity but to call forth the earth to produce, to empower creation to flourish.
The prophetic stream energizes possibility. Just as the prophetic testimony both articulates the fundamental brokenness of the present order and transcends the present moment to envision a radically alternative future, the prophetic stream continually engages with what is to explore what could be.
Prophetic work is to recognize and call forth this potential in each other, in our teams, and in our fellowship. Not for one or few people to do all the work themselves. That is how we get lost in the weeds, taking on too many tasks instead of empowering others to lead and serve. I appreciated the reminder of our place as I listened to Where were you? by the Porter’s Gate from their collection of Climate Vigil songs.
The pattern embedded in the creation story reveals the action of the prophetic stream as it creates certain forms and then liberates their potential to be more differentiated and interrelated forms of being.
As my nun and I discussed yesterday, each person has different gifts and interests to contribute. It doesn’t make sense to all do the same thing. The vast diversity of the creation, the process of empowering, is an inspiring model. I think about how we can engage with that pattern. To liberate potential. To become more differentiated and interrelated. This is prophetic labor. And it is work. All of this calling forth of potential takes energy.
We can recognize the prophetic stream flowing through our own lives when we reflect on our continuing deep desire to grow past our limitations and to participate more fully and consciously in life.
May the prophetic stream flow through us and through our fellowship, that we would grow past our limitations and be liberated to live into the potential to which God calls us. –Renée
* The Liberating Path of the Hebrew Prophets, p. 45-47