Behold! I am making all things new!
Revelation 21.5

This cry comes in a chapter of Revelation that begins, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had vanished, and there was no longer any sea." A useful footnote in the Jerusalem Bible reminds us that the sea symbolizes evil because it was the home of the dragon (a wicked fallen angel or minor god, according to the legend of the ancient Jews and Babylonians); the sea will vanish as it did at the Exodus, but this time for ever, before the triumphal advance of the new Israel. The sea is also a symbol of the unconscious part of the mind in psychoanalytic theory. And yet the grumpy writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes solidly declares, "What has happened will happen again, and what has been done will be done again, and there is nothing new under the sun" (Eccles. 1.9). He goes on to observe that even what appears to be new existed long before our time; the men of old are not remembered, and those who follow will not be remembered by those who follow them. We may argue that the scientific face of the earth is very different from the world of Ecclesiastes 2,300 years ago, but if we are honest we will have to concede that the hearts of people show remarkably little change from those who lived in ancient times. How easy it is to see elements of the adulterous David, the perfidious Ahab, the treacherous Judas Iscariot and the craven Peter in the depths of ourselves, to say nothing of those who wield great power in the world's councils!

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (the more things change, the more they are the same), wrote Alphonse Karr in 1849 in Les Guepes. It remains a cynical comment on human progress, but it is advisedly taken into account by all who have the welfare of their fellows at heart. Customs may change, but the human heart remains distressingly deceitful, desperately sick beyond all fathoming (Jer. 17.9). The tragic decay of progressive social institutions is a sad commentary on the tendency we have to abuse general benefits for our own ends. In other words, the civilized behaviour of many people is simply a veneer which covers an animal concern for its own satisfaction at the cost of any finer feelings. When we return to our evening recollection of the day we have spent, we should not occlude our gaze from this part of our being.

While we live purely carnal lives we cannot advance spiritually, but when the Spirit of God descends on us and ignites the spirit within us where the Holy Spirit dwells as an unconscious presence, our sights are raised from mere survival to resurrection, from procreation to spiritual union with God and therefore with our fellows also. Fortunately the human spirit will never be content with earthly remedies for its strivings, because it has its home in eternity, the place of divine presence. This is closer to us than our own being, while at the same time transcending all categories of human thought and illuminating the noblest endeavour with a radiance that promises resurrection of all mortal elements to a new life in eternity.

It is this heaven that the writer of Revelation glimpsed. The world as we know it has its span no less certainly than any of its creatures; nothing of the universe is destined for immortality in its present state. "What I mean, my brothers, is this: flesh and blood can never possess the kingdom of God, and the perishable cannot possess immortality" (1 Cor. 15.50). Whenever we are open to the Holy Spirit, whether in prayer or in our awareness of the present moment such that we can come spontaneously to the aid of a fellow creature in distress, a new life enfolds us. The mystic knows this particularly well at the moment of illumination, but we lesser people are included also when we give up something of ourselves for those around us. At that moment the unchanging face of reality that Ecclesiastes bemoans takes on the freshness of a newly born child, and we see it properly for the first time. But we must persist, lest the vision fades.

Give me the freshness of vision and the integrity of intent, Lord, to perform my day's work so excellently that both it and I may be a witness to your abiding creativity that works for the resurrection of the whole world.