THE GENESIS CANTICLE OF THE WORD

I. The Beginning and the Word

Before all beginnings,

He was—

alone, unmade, unmoved,

complete in His own being.

Good.

Beautiful.

Whole.

He desired nothing;

nothing lay beyond Him.

He is Life—

the living I AM.

Then He spoke:

a Word—

not new, not born,

but always in Him,

always Him.

The Word went forth

yet never left—

distinct, not divided,

the utterance of His own heart.

From the Word came Breath:

wind unseen,

love in motion,

Spirit proceeding—

light within movement,

movement within light.

The Breath waited for its moment—

the fullness of waiting,

the patience of joy.

When the hour ripened,

the Word took flesh.

The cry of Be

became Emmanuel.

Three—yet One:

Speaker, Spoken, Breath between—

Father, Son, Spirit,

ever One, ever Love.

II. The Deep Before the Word

Before the first “Let there be,”

there was no night—

for before Light,

there can be no shadow.

Only unmanifest waiting,

silence without contrast,

a sea without surface,

a question before answer.

The vacuum of relation,

unpenetrated latency,

the womb of unspoken possibility—

the hush before a face would lean into clay.

No evil stirred;

evil requires being.

This was less than being—

the pause before Presence.

Then the Breath hovered,

soft as promise,

heavy with purpose.

And the Voice arose from within Himself,

not against the void

but into it.

“Light.”

A single syllable of self-revelation.

All that was latent quickened.

Waiting became wonder;

silence became song.

Yet even in that song

a distortion-echo loomed—

chilling lucience,

noise of undoing.

The void drooled envy,

coveting the breath it could not be—

a counter to I AM,

an I’m Not angst

whispering of what is not.

Still the Light advanced,

unhurried, unthreatened—

its warmth widening the borders of nothing,

its radiance calling space to dance.

III. The Song of the Word Unfolding

He said, “Let Us…”

and silence trembled.

Fullness overflowed;

what was hidden took form.

The Word stretched forth His arm—

imagination reaching outward,

desire exhaled toward eternity.

Sound became substance,

meaning became motion;

the void received its pulse.

“Let there be Light.”

And there was.

Light—God’s laughter—

burst upon the deep.

Darkness bowed.

The false gleam fled,

its chilling lucience

flickering at dawn’s rim.

The Breath divided the waters;

space unfurled like a scroll.

He named the heights Heaven,

the depths Ocean.

Wind and wave danced.

He sang again:

earth rose from beneath the sea,

a cradle for seed and root.

Spirit whispered through dust,

and green awoke.

Grass bent; trees lifted their arms.

He spoke once more:

flame, feather, fin, and fur

answered His call.

Beasts roared in cadence;

birds etched His name on air.

The sea foamed with laughter.

Yet beneath rejoicing

a shadow rehearsed resentment—

watching wonder

but not worshipping.

It gathered fragments of glory

and called them its own.

Still the Word rejoiced.

The Spirit hovered.

The Father beheld

and said, “It is good.”

IV. The Great Pause

Love desired an image,

a mirror for delight.

He knelt to dust.

Hands that held galaxies

shaped clay.

He pressed His face into the earth—

a full-faced kiss,

imprinting His own image:

other, yet fitting;

mirror, yet companion.

Then He breathed—

hope, promise, life.

Breath met dust;

Spirit mingled with matter;

man awoke.

Eyes opened into light.

Soul kindled within form—

melody made flesh,

dust and glory in harmony.

Heaven hushed.

In this new being

the Word found His echo.

But freedom shuddered.

A chilling lucience coiled:

“You could sing alone.”

The mirror admired itself.

The echo sought the song.

The whisper offered knowing

without trust.

Desire bent inward.

Love curdled to possession.

Harmony tore.

The garden fell silent.

Yet the Father sowed redemption—

a seed beneath the curse,

hidden, living, waiting,

the cross already pulsing

beneath Eden.

V. The Descent and the Promise

The gaze broke.

Clay that once reflected Heaven

turned inward

and saw only dust.

The kiss cooled on the wind.

Freedom reached for mastery.

The mimic whisper wound close:

Be your own source.

Light your own fire.

Shape your own truth.

And the echo believed the echo.

The mirror admired itself.

The echo sought the song.

The whisper offered knowing

without trust.

Desire bent inward;

love curdled to possession.

Harmony tore;

the garden fell silent.

Yet the imprint remained—

blurred, bruised, not erased.

The Breath lingered in lungs of dust;

the memory of a face

haunted the soil.

He called: “Where are you?”

Mercy, not accusation.

They fled the answer.

Then Love promised Himself again.

He clothed loss with mercy,

sowed a seed in the wound.

The void mocked patience,

but the promise stirred—

small as heartbeat,

strong as eternity.

Through ages the Breath hovered still—

over deserts and dreams,

altars and wombs,

kings and shepherds.

The shadow spread its pride,

but the seed whispered, “wait.”

Prophets felt it in the drought,

standing between silence and rain.

Mothers felt it quicken in their bones.

Time thickened with expectation.

Heaven held its breath once more.

Then, in ripened fullness,

the same Breath descended again.

The Virgin received the Word,

and the cry of Be

became Emmanuel.

VI. The Travail of Light

When the feast was ready

but still uneaten,

He came.

He entered the womb He had woven.

Flesh received its Potter.

Infinity folded into infancy.

Majesty learned hunger.

The Voice that called galaxies

murmured in a manger’s breath.

He whom angels adored

clutched a mother’s finger

and dreamed the dreams of man.

The drought shivered.

Thirst turned its face toward Him.

The uneaten feast began to breathe.

Still many mistook famine for freedom

and passed Him by.

He walked His own dust,

heard creation’s lament.

Every sickness a contraction,

every sorrow a labour pain.

Light entered darkness—

not as lightning

but as seed.

Truth flowed in the bloodstream of history.

The Word took on wounds.

He healed with the hands

that shaped the dawn,

spoke with the voice

that said “Let there be.”

Yet many preferred silence to song,

night to the rising day.

Love pressed deeper.

Spiked, He bled into the clay,

His crimson sinking through stone,

threading the roots of ruin,

seeping into the chambers of captivity.

There He laboured alone,

breathing light through the bedrock of bondage,

calling the sleepers by name.

Darkness strained to keep Him.

The mimic light screamed.

But the Breath remembered its rhythm;

the Word remembered His light.

With a cry that split stone,

He gave up the Spirit.

Creation convulsed—

the world giving birth.

At dawn the tomb yawned like a spent mother.

The Firstborn of new creation

stood breathing new air.

The grave became cradle.

Light laughed again.

VII. The Renewal and the Rest

Morning spread across creation.

The Potter stood within His clay.

The vessel once cracked in pride

gleamed with living light.

The Breath moved again—

not hovering now,

but indwelling.

Fired by love,

dust remembered its design.

He walked among His people,

showing scars like fingerprints—

proof the Maker

had entered the mould.

He spoke peace into fear,

bread into meaning,

water into Spirit.

He filled the hollow places;

every heart became a kiln.

The seed awakened;

the feast was eaten.

Light moved from one to another—

quiet, contagious, endless.

Then the Breath blazed—

fire-tongued, dunamis-born—

spiriting up His children,

setting truth to flame,

crowning weakness with power.

Wind became word again,

and sons and daughters spoke light.

Jesus, the Face in the clay made right,

the Holy Spirit—the Breath restoring Breath,

reanimating the scarred sacred

till dust remembered glory.

Creation sighed in relief.

The first song returned.

The clay sang with its Potter.

And He, who once leaned His face into earth,

now lifted earth to His face again.

The gaze restored.

The mirror clear.

Love at rest.