Ursprung

Aus dem Felsen springt die Quelle:
So die Schöpfung aus dem Nichts.
Und sie strömet Well’ auf Welle
aufs Geheiß des Herrn des Lichts.

Und sie funkelt, und sie dunkelt,
und sie sprudelt fort und fort;
und sie murmelt, und sie rufet,
da geschaffen durch das Wort.

Und sie schäumet, und sie strebet,
spiegelt, springt empor zum Licht;
denn sie sucht den Herrn des Lebens
Angesicht zu Angesicht.

Christina Egan © 2016

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This poem or hymn may work quite well in a translation software.

The text is based on the Jewish-Christian myth of creation: Out of nothingness (or chaos), God called everything into being (and order). Light was the first thing made, and it was all done through the word.

There is also a concept in Christian philosophy that God continues creating the world every moment; if he ever ceased, everything would tumble back into nothing. These ideas are really the opposite of nihilism.

Other thoughts from the Letters of the Apostles (at the end of the Christian part of the Bible) are that the whole of creation is striving and struggling towards God as if in labour; and that at the end of time, we shall emerge from darkness to see God ‘face to face’.

The title, ‘Origin’, means ‘first source’ in German; you can see the word ‘spring’ in it. Yet, I added the title in the end; the image and first lines stood clearly in my mind on waking up: the source springing from the rock, like the world out of nothingness, or life out of lifelessness.

A thought about a person stepping out from a building into the sunshine as if liberating himself or herself from a rockface can be found at Gelbes Licht, with a statue by Michelangelo that must have inspired it.

Photograph: Atlas Mountains, Morocco. Christina Egan © 2012.