Rooted in the Christian contemplative traditions, the Daily Meditations offer reflections from Richard Rohr, CAC faculty and guest teachers to help you deepen your spiritual practice and embody compassion in the world.
In the Beginning
Week Two Summary In the Beginning
Saturday 17 January 2026
Sunday
The Genesis creation story is really quite extraordinary when compared to other creation stories of its time. Our creation story declares that we were created in the very “image and likeness” of God, and out of generative love.
—Richard Rohr
Monday
Together with all living things, you share the breath of life, participating in the same cycles of birth and death, reproduction and recycling and renewal. You, with them, are part of the story of creation—different branches on the tree of life.
—Brian McLaren
Tuesday
Genesis 1–2:3 does not claim to be a literal-historical text. Rather, it’s a part of a common genre of ancient religious literature known as the creation myth, which is not intended to be a historical representation of events.
—Jennifer Garcia Bashaw and Aaron Higashi
Wednesday
Everything created is in harmony and balance with everything else and with the Creator. The first week of creation is a grand picture of shalom on the earth.
—Randy Woodley
Thursday
The authors of Genesis wrote down the Word that came to them in their time, but in doing so they were putting into human words the eternal Word which speaks the truth for every generation.
—Richard Rohr
Friday
There is no pressure on infinite holy mystery to create and continuously support a world. How could there be? It is done freely, as a flaming, generous act of love, the plentitude of infinite love overflowing.
—Elizabeth Johnson
Week Two Practice
Trusting the Deeper Truth
Informed by science and the traditions of her Penobscot heritage, author Sherri Mitchell invites us to attend to the stories of our own creation:
Our origination stories begin in the stars… It is from the radiance of that star dust that we were born and the great migration of souls first began.
When we come into this universe, we are born into our first ecosystem, our mother’s womb. There we are nurtured and sustained through an umbilical connection to the body of our birth mother. When we are born into this world, our umbilical connection is transferred from our birth mother to the Earth mother. Our umbilical connection with the Earth mother then nurtures and sustains us for the remainder of our human lives.
Though we have migrated a great distance, the radiance of that star dust still resonates within us. It is the essence of something indescribable that is etched upon our souls. It stirs something deep within us. This stirring is a call of recognition, of remembrance. It continuously reminds us that we are infinitely connected to one another, to the natural world, and to a unified divine source. Evidence of our shared origin can be found all around us. Science has finally caught up with what we have always known, that we are all related. We are all made out of the same foundational elements. It is simply the arrangement of those elements that gives distinct form to what we see before us. We share DNA with every other living being. Approximately 98 percent of our DNA is shared with primates, and about 35 percent is shared with plants…. We all come from the same originating source, and we all comprise the same foundational elements.
We are part of a uni-verse, a collection of individual notes in one continuous song; the song that sang all life into being. This song is the drone of the musical universe. It is the foundation upon which all structure is built. If we listen closely, we can hear this creation song echoing in our bones.
Friday 16 January 2026 An Origin Story of Love
Theologian Elizabeth Johnson identifies love as the origin of all creation:
The question of why there is anything at all, why there is something and not nothing, finds an answer in the basic character of the Creator: “God is love” (1 John 4:8). The living God is love, faithful, challenging, and compassionate love as the scriptures often declare…. This love is the wellspring of creation. There is no pressure on infinite holy mystery to create and continuously support a world. How could there be? It is done freely, as a flaming, generous act of love, the plentitude of infinite love overflowing. With simple reasoning one biblical book figures it this way: “For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made, for you would not have formed anything if you had hated it” (Wisdom 11:24).
The living God’s way of creating is sui generis, genuinely one of a kind. When humans create, whether it be a baby, a book, a building, a business, … a protest sign, a song, it is always done with material at hand. By contrast, the often-used traditional Latin phrase ex nihilo, “out of nothing,” points to the unfathomable act of God’s originating all things and continuously keeping them in existence with no material at hand, no intermediary, no pressure, no pre-existing conditions.
Poetic images abound. God speaks and the power of that word brings the world into being: Let there be, and lo! there it is. Again, God molds a human figure out of the dust of the earth and breathes the spirit of life into its nostrils, and it becomes a living being. Both are images in the book of Genesis. Like a woman giving birth, like a potter casting clay on a wheel, like a bird brooding eggs into hatching, like an artist making a beautiful work of art, God makes a world. These and other biblical images hint bravely at how we might imagine the relationship of creation. None, of course, can be taken literally. But each one keeps front and center the connection between Maker and what is made….
The Creator gives with great affection; creatures receive. Nothing in the great world would exist but for this constant relationship. Rocks, plants, animals, human beings, ecosystems, stars, galaxies, universes—without the ongoing creative power of God at every moment, all would collapse into … an unimaginable no-thing. Owing one’s existence to the ongoing creative love of the living God is the core meaning of being created.
Elizabeth A. Johnson, Come, Have Breakfast: Meditations on God and the Earth (Orbis Books, 2024), 5–7.
Thursday 15 January 2026 Inviting Good Questions
Father Richard describes why the book of Genesis was so important to the people of ancient Israel:
Although many of the stories found in Genesis were passed down from generation to generation among the Israelites, they were not collected and put into their final form until after the Babylonian exile, around the mid-5th century BCE. In the aftermath of their national calamity, the Jewish people realized that their heritage might indeed be lost if it were not written down, and their religious leaders were inspired to gather together many strands of their oral tradition and weave them into a continuous narrative. They attributed the authorship to Moses, meaning that the authority for the wisdom of this tradition goes back at least as far as Moses’s time. We don’t know the actual names of the scribes who wrote it in the form we have today. They were less concerned with putting their names on their work than with preserving the wisdom of their religious heritage.
The religious questions they were wrestling with are questions that thoughtful people ask in every age: What is the meaning of life? Where does it come from? Where does it go? What is the relationship between God and humanity? Why is there evil in the world? Why do good people have to suffer? These questions were especially disturbing for the Jews after their return from exile. They thought they had known who they were and what God’s purpose was for them, but the shattering of their dreams forced them to think again and to think more deeply.
Perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind when reading the first eleven chapters of Genesis is that it is written not only about the past but about the present— the perennial present that is always with us. The authors of Genesis wrote down the Word that came to them in their time, but in doing so they were putting into human words the eternal Word which speaks the truth for every generation. They were writing what is always true about God and human beings, about the goodness of the world, and about “sin” which causes suffering.
Put in theological terminology, the story is saying that everything is grace, everything is gift, everything comes from God. God is the one who makes something out of nothing and gives it to us, not only then, but now. God created both the natural universe and our own human nature, and all of it is good. All of it is to be enjoyed, if we can receive it as a gift.
Story From Our Community
When I bless myself with the sign of the cross, I take my time to sit with who the Trinity is and who I am. “I bless myself in the name of the Father and receive anew the original blessing of unconditional love, divinity, and dignity, and I accept it in my faithful foolishness. I bless myself in the name of the Son, and I receive anew the original blessing of passionate love, insight, and creative freedom, and I accept it in my holy weakness. I bless myself in the name of the Holy Spirit and I receive anew the original blessing of Trinitarian love and communitarian living and I accept it in my loving lowliness. Amen.”
—Jean S.
Adapted from Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos, The Great Themes of Scripture: Old Testament (St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1987), 85–86, 87.
Wednesday 14 July 2026 A Harmonious Goodness
Then God looked at all God had made, and God saw that it was very good.
—Genesis 1:31
Cherokee theologian and CAC guest faculty member Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley considers how creation’s goodness includes diversity, balance, and harmony:
In the pronouncement that “it is good,” the Creator is making an accurate judgment about all that exists. By proclaiming that everything is good, right, in order, and as it should be, God sets the state of earthly normalcy. “Good” becomes the once-and-for-all standard of life on earth….
In the first account of creation, each action and each result of God’s action is differentiated. Not one created part is the other, nor does it become the other. Each part of creation was made unique and after its own kind, special. And yet, each part is incomplete without the whole, and everything is being and becoming in relationship to and with the other…. It is the essence of harmony and balance.
The celestials regulate the balance of the terrestrials. The night dusk comes to softly compel all creation to enter into rest and the calm brings about refreshing coolness to the world. The advent of the day provides new life and new opportunities like the embrace of warmth for plants, animals, and humans. The moon regulates all the waters. The sun regulates each season…. Everything created is in harmony and balance with everything else and with the Creator. The first week of creation is a grand picture of shalom on the earth.
God’s shalom, which is holistic peace and harmony, is discovered through the interconnectedness of all creation.
From God’s purview there is an interconnectedness of all God has made. All things are designed and created beautifully by their Creator. Each part of the created whole bears the mark of its Creator. Each element works in relationship with all the others. Each ingredient is connected through its common origin and, together, all share a common location in the universe; and when God is finished with creation there is a pause on the seventh day. Not a pause as if to look back and second-guess, but an intentional pause to celebrate the way it is. The Aboriginal Rainbow Elders in Australia say the Creator sang on the seventh day. The meaning is like that of a gathering or a community “get-together” where celebration is the only priority. The celebration is a party because everything is harmonious as it was meant to be. This is God’s shalom creation party. Though told in slightly different ways, many indigenous peoples around the world are able to recognize this story, and this pause, as the Harmony Way….
The idea of God’s shalom is not divorced from creation, but as we can plainly see from the earliest Genesis account, creation is central to our understanding of shalom. Creation (what God did and continues to do daily) and the carrying out of shalom (what we are to do daily) are inextricably interwoven. We have the opportunity each day to participate in God’s shalom activities.
Tuesday 13 January 2026 The Gift of Two Stories
Biblical scholars Jennifer Garcia Bashaw and Aaron Higashi point out the difficulties that arise if Christians try to read the Genesis creation stories literally:It can be difficult to fully appreciate the seven-day schema of creation in Genesis 1 when we’re reading the text in the modern world, where the sciences all attest to an earth that formed over billions of years. Many people in fact feel uncomfortable with this apparent contradiction….
Indeed, there are many Bible readers who, out of a sense of loyalty to a literal-historical understanding of Genesis 1, feel compelled to deny the conclusions of modern sciences. But this feeling is unnecessary because Genesis 1–2:3 does not claim to be a literal-historical text. Rather, it’s a part of a common genre of ancient religious literature known as the creation myth, which is not intended to be a historical representation of events.
The second creation story in Genesis contradicts much of the first. Garcia Bashaw and Higashi show how both are needed:
In Genesis 1, God is a transcendent being who creates the world through acts of speech in a structured process where each step is already anticipating the next. In Genesis 1, God is so successful in creating the world that each day is called good, and God can rest at the end, certain that everything is working as intended.
In Genesis 2, we see something different. In this passage, God is a human-like being who creates by forming things with God’s own hands and breathing life into them. The process in Genesis 2 is fraught with setbacks, where God discovers man’s loneliness isn’t good. God proceeds to make animals to try to fix that loneliness, and then makes Eve because the animals don’t suffice.
In addition to the chapters’ portrayals of God, the stories flatly contradict each other in their orders of creation. In Genesis 1, vegetation is created before animals, then animals are created before men and women, who are made at the same time. But in Genesis 2:4 and following, Adam is created before any vegetation, then animals are created before Eve.…
In many ways, the Bible does us a favor by beginning with two contradictory stories. In so doing, the Bible signals to us at the outset what this text actually is: a diverse collection of religious traditions that have been brought together by different communities of faith over a long period of time…. When you read the Bible, you’re reading an anthology of ancient religious literature—not a textbook, not an instructional manual, not a love letter from God, and not a complete work of systematic theology.
Now, just because it’s an anthology of ancient religious literature doesn’t mean it can’t be inspired by God, or say true things about God, or be helpful in trying to understand God. Its being an anthology just means that whatever is in it that is true, inspired, or helpful will come through in many, sometimes conflicting, voices.
Story From Our Community
As I was sitting on our back deck for my regular quiet morning reflection, I was looking out on the trees and grasses. I suddenly became aware that every leaf on every tree and every blade of grass was alive. We don’t know how to make that happen, only the Creator of life gives the gift of life and love.
—Ray P.
From Serving Up Scripture: How to Interpret the Bible for Yourself and Others by Jennifer Garcia Bashaw and Aaron Higashi. Copyright © 2026 Broadleaf Books. Reproduced by permission. Pages 58, 61–62.
Monday, January 12 2026 An Intimate Origin Story
Brian McLaren reflects on the miraculous creation of the cosmos and everything in it:
The first and greatest surprise—a miracle, really—is this: that anything exists at all…. The first pages of the Bible and the best thinking of today’s scientists are in full agreement: it all began in the beginning, when space and time, energy and matter, gravity and light, burst or bloomed or banged into being. In light of the Genesis story, we would say that the possibility of this universe overflowed into actuality as God, the Creative Spirit, uttered the original joyful invitation: Let it be! And in response, what happened? Light. Time. Space. Matter. Motion. Sea. Stone. Fish. Sparrow. You. Me. Enjoying the unspeakable gift and privilege of being here, being alive….
Genesis means “beginnings.” It speaks through deep, multilayered poetry and wild, ancient stories. The poetry and stories of Genesis reveal deep truths that can help us be more fully alive today. They dare to proclaim that the universe is God’s self-expression, God’s speech act. That means that everything everywhere is always essentially holy, spiritual, valuable, meaningful. All matter matters.
Through the book of Genesis we encounter a story of goodness and interconnectedness.
Genesis tells us that the universe is good—a truth so important it gets repeated like the theme of a song…. Every river or hill or valley or forest is good. Skin? Good. Bone? Good. Mating and eating and breathing and giving birth and growing old? Good, good, good. All are good. Life is good.
The best thing in Genesis is not simply human beings, but the whole creation considered and enjoyed together, as a beautiful, integrated whole, and us a part. The poetry of Genesis describes the “very goodness” that comes at the end of a long process of creation … when all the parts, including us, are working together as one whole. That harmonious whole is so good that the Creator takes a day off, as it were, just to enjoy it. That day of restful enjoyment tells us that the purpose of existence isn’t money or power or fame or security or anything less than this: to participate in the goodness and beauty and aliveness of creation….
According to the first creation story, you are part of creation. You are made from common soil … dust, Genesis says; stardust, astronomers tell us … soil that becomes watermelons and grain and apples and peanuts, and then, they become food, and then that food becomes you…. Together with all living things, you share the breath of life, participating in the same cycles of birth and death, reproduction and recycling and renewal. You, with them, are part of the story of creation—different branches on the tree of life. In that story, you are connected and related to everything everywhere. In fact, that is a good partial definition of God: God is the one through whom we are related and connected to everything.
Sunday 11 January 2026 A Brilliant Start
Feast of the Baptism of Jesus
Father Richard Rohr describes how the creation story found in the book of Genesis is good news:
Genesis is the first book in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. It’s neither the oldest, nor the first Jewish Scripture written down, but its brilliance gets us off to a very good start. The Genesis creation story is really quite extraordinary when compared to other creation stories of its time. Some peoples envision creation happening by spontaneous combustion, or emerging out of a hole in the ground, or through a mythological figure, or even through an act of violence. But our creation story declares that we were created in the very “image and likeness” of God, and out of generative love (Genesis 1:27, 9:6). This starts us out on an absolutely positive and hopeful foundation.
The first act of divine revelation is creation itself. The very first Bible is nature, which was written about 13.8 billion years ago, at the moment that we call the Big Bang, long before the Bible of words. God initially speaks through what is, as we see Paul affirming in Romans 1:20: “Ever since God created the world, God’s everlasting power and deity—however invisible—have been there for the mind to see in the things God has made.”
The biblical account tells us God creates the world developmentally over six days, almost as if there were an ancient intuition of what we would eventually call evolution. Clearly creation happened over time. The only strict theological assertion of the Genesis story is that God started it all. The exact how, when, and where is not the author’s concern. [1]
This creation story, which some modern scholars think was written down nearly five hundred years before Jesus lived, has no intention or ability to be a scientific account. It’s an inspired account of the source, meaning, and original goodness of creation. Thus, it is indeed “true.” Both Western rationalists and religious fundamentalists must stop confusing true with that which is literal, chronological, or visible to the narrow spectrum of the human eye. Many assume the Bible is an exact snapshot—as if caught on camera—of God’s involvement on Earth. But if God needed such literalism, God would have waited for the 19th century of the Common Era to start talking and revealing through “infallible” technology. [2]
Science often affirms what were for centuries the highly suspect intuitions of the Scriptures and mystics. We now take it for granted that everything in the universe is deeply connected and linked, even light itself, which interestingly is the first act of creation (Genesis 1:3). Objects—even galaxies!—throughout the entire known universe are in orbits and cycle around something else. There’s no such thing in the whole universe as autonomy. It doesn’t exist. That’s the illusion of the modern, individualistic West, which imagines the autonomous self to be the basic building block and the true Seer. [3]
Story From Our Community
I just finished reading Brian McLaren’s meditation on his dream of a unified earth. Throughout the story, I got a strong sense that maybe the Garden of Eden was not a small, secret place, but in reality, is how our entire Mother Earth was initially created. What we see today is the result of many, many years of the human footprint on our world. We desperately need more dreamers.
—David R.
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, rev. ed. (Franciscan Media, 2022), 25–26, 30–31.
[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, “The First Bible,” Daily Meditation, February 28, 2016.
[3] Rohr, Things Hidden, 57–58.
Image credit and inspiration: Sergey Kvint, untitled (detail), 2023, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. A single green shoot rising from the forest floor tells a quiet story of the earth’s own generative imagination.
CAC faculty member Brian McLaren shares the theme for the 2026 Daily Meditations. Watch the video.
Story From Our Community
James Finley says, “God sustains us in all things while protecting us from nothing.” I’ve come to believe that it’s only through seeing God in our suffering that we can truly be free from the fear that causes us to choose ways of being that are not loving. Even in our fear, when we choose not to love, God is there. God has not, could not, and will not ever forsake us. God is not safe, but God is good. It’s the same thing to say that reality is not safe, but reality is good.
—Heather C.
[1] Adapted from Brian D. McLaren, 2026 Daily Meditations Theme: Good News for a Fractured World, Center for Action and Contemplation, video, 6:38.
[2] Brian D. McLaren, Do I Stay Christian? A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2022), 138, 139–140.
Image credit and inspiration: Paul Macallan, untitled (detail), 2021, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like this bright flower, the gift of contemplation and action brings us hope in the midst of painful reality.
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Christine Valters Paintner on Seeking a Word
Author Christine Valters Paintner shares how the desert mystics have wisdom for us today.
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Click the image for the latest from ‘News from New Mexico’.
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