New Church Life Sept/Oct 2013 | Page 81

  darkness and ignorance toward a state that is more awake, present, vibrant, loving and peaceful. Each ‘day’ along the way is good. Each day provides new opportunities. Each day offers a chance to practice peace. Even the seventh day, the time of rest, is not the end. After a period of peace, we soon move on to a new beginning, with a new awakening. “Seven Practices of Peace will walk you through each of the seven days of creation, offering inspiration and suggestions for practicing peace, a little every day.” Many Journey groups are already underway. For more information and resources, visit www.NewChurchJourney.org. the creation project From the July/August 2013 New Church Voice of Florida by Ron Horvath As believers in the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, we understand that the Genesis account of creation is not history but describes the regeneration of man; but for non-believers, that account is a major obstacle to religious faith. Any effort to re-ignite in this group an interest in Christianity must deal in some way with that obstacle and do so in a more rational context. This belief was my personal motivation in beginning the Creation Project almost two years ago. Since then it has included, among others, Ian Thompson, a nuclear physicist at the Lawrence Livermore Labs and the author of Starting Science From God. We are developing a video with animations that explains, in terms that the average person can understand, the events of the physical creation, from the “first proceeding” to the formation of the physical world. We aim to appeal to their rational mind by associating the true creation with the most sophisticated fields of the institution that they have come to trust most – science. The scope of the video spans quantum physics to the Writings. It introduces Swedenborg, the scientist, along with Einstein, confirming his earlier ideas. One goal is to show what science has learned from cosmology and quantum field theory, and how they have confirmed the works of Swedenborg. It wasn’t until almost 200 years later that Einstein’s equations confirmed Swedenborg’s proposition that the universe was exp