For Orthodox Christians, today is the first day of the liturgical year, and also the Feast of Creation. The perfect day to think on this:
“Who is it that forms the flowers so wisely, so delicately, arranges so splendidly, and gives form to the disordered, i.e., the shapeless, formless substances of the earth? Who gives it such wonderful form? O Creator, grant us the opportunity through flowers to embrace Thy wisdom, Thy benevolence, and Thine almighty power.”
– St John of Kronstadt
THE VIEW FROM THE WINDOW
Like a painting it is set before one,
But less brittle, ageless; these colours
Are renewed daily with variations
Of light and distance that no painter
Achieves or suggests. Then there is movement,
Change, as slowly the cloud bruises
Are healed by sunlight, or snow caps
A black mood; but gold at evening
To cheer the heart. All through history
The great brush has not rested,
Nor the paint dried; yet what eye,
Looking coolly, or, as we now,
Through the tears’ lenses, ever saw
This work and it was not finished?
-R. S. Thomas, Poetry for Supper
Bed-making duplicates the cosmic order, because you make order out of chaos, and that’s a good thing to do when you first awaken, because you’re reenacting the creation of the world in a symbolic manner. It’s a good way to get your day going.
-Jordan Peterson, in an interview
“Now, what do we mean by nominalism, and why is it important? There are many aspects of the nominalist position, but the main one is just the denial that this created world is an icon of a heavenly reality. Instead, nominalists hold this world’s form to be arbitrary, a product of sheer divine will.
“As Orthodox, we still comfortably assert that the world is an icon of heaven, or is meant to be. But in the West this union of the symbolic and the real became rather vexed. Now, we have even developed this destructive iconoclasm around gender, the human body, human sexuality, and so forth. Outside the Church, we have come to think that we can simply posit whatever reality we wish about these things.
“The nominalist and the realist positions must be reconciled. We must see that the reality of the world depends upon its being a symbol of heavenly realities. If creation is not a symbol of heaven, then its essence, its substance, would be of little importance. For example, if the world is just the arbitrary product of God’s will, then God could have made some other world, or not have given us gender, and so forth. And if the world’s form is arbitrary, then it is no longer ‘good,’ no longer beautiful and holy.”
-Timothy G. Patitsas, The Ethics of Beauty
Gladsome Lights 