• Who We Are
    • Who We Are
    • Mission
    • History
    • General Synod
    • Leadership and Ministry
    • Staff
    • United Church of Christ Board
  • What We Believe
    • What We Believe
    • Worship Ways
    • Daily Devotional
  • What We Do
    • What We Do
    • Office of the General Minister & President
    • Justice & Local Church Ministries
    • Wider Church Ministries
  • News
  • Church Finder
  • Donate Now
  • Search
UCC Logo United Church of Christ
  • Church Finder
  • Events
  • Contact
  • Store
  • Frontline Faith Portal
  • Donate Now
  • Search
  • Who We Are
    • Column
      • About
        • Mission
        • Constitution and Bylaws
        • History
          • UCC Archives
        • UCC Brand Guidelines
        • General Synod
          • Synod 33 Worship Videos
          • Past General Synods
        • Abuse Prevention
    • Column
      • Structure
        • Conferences
        • Affiliated Ministries
          • The Pension Boards
          • Cornerstone Fund
          • Insurance Board
          • The Council for Health and Human Services Ministries
          • Church Building & Loan Fund
          • Convergence
    • Column
      • Team
        • Elected Officers
        • Staff
        • United Church of Christ Board
          • Board Minutes
        • Office of General Counsel
        • UCCOSSN
    • Column
      • Career Opportunities
      • Annual Reports
  • What We Believe
    • Column
      • Worship
        • Statement of Faith of the United Church of Christ – La Declaración de Fe de la Iglesia Unida de Cristo
        • Worship Ways
        • Daily Devotional
        • Sermon Seeds
  • How We Serve
    • Column
      • Office of the General Minister & President
        • Welcome to Human Resources
          • Employee Relations Resources
        • Center for Analytics, Research & Development and Data (CARDD)
          • General CARDD FAQs
          • About The Center for Analytics, Research & Development, and Data (CARDD)
          • Authorized Minister Opt Out
          • Access UCC
          • Archived Reports
          • Assessment Resources
          • Information Policies and Requests
          • Faith Communities Today (FACT) Survey
          • MissionInsite
          • Statistics and Reports
          • Vital Signs and Statistics Blog
          • Data Hub FAQs
          • Data Hub
          • Yearbook and Directory
    • Column
      • Justice & Local Church Ministries
        • Justice
          • Faithful Action Ministries
            • Environmental Justice Ministries
            • Economic Justice
            • Racial Justice
          • Office of Public Policy & Advocacy in Washington D.C.
            • Justice and Peace Action Network
            • Our Faith Our Vote
            • Justice Training Resources
            • Action Center
          • Health and Wholeness Advocacy
            • Disabilities and Mental Health Justice
            • Encuentros Latinx
            • UCC HIV & AIDS Network-UCAN
            • LGBTQ Ministries
            • Our Whole Lives
            • Overdose and Drug Use Ministries
            • Scouting
            • Wellness Ministries
          • The Pilgrim Press & Stillspeaking Publications
    • Column
      • Justice & Local Church Ministries
        • Local Church
          • The Faith Education, Innovation and Formation (Faith INFO)Team
            • Weekly Seeds
            • Youth & Young Adults
          • Worship Resources
            • Worship Ways
            • Sermon Seeds
            • Synod 33 Worship Videos
            • Music and Liturgical Arts
          • Stewardship & Generosity Resources
          • Ministerial Excellence, Support & Authorization (MESA)
            • History, Polity, and Theology
            • Search and Call
            • Ministerial Profiles
            • Ministry Opportunities
            • Manual on Ministry
    • Column
      • Wider Church Ministries
        • Global Ministries
        • Global H.O.P.E.
          • Volunteer Ministries
          • Refugee and Migration Ministries
          • Disaster Ministries
          • Recovering Hope
        • Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations
  • Resources
  • News
    • Column
      • News
        • United Church of Christ News
    • Column
      • Columns
        • Witness for Justice
        • Into the Mystic
        • Getting to the Root of It
        • The Pollinator: UCC Environmental Justice Blog
        • UCC Roots
        • Encounters at the Well
        • Reflexiones
    • Column
      • Upcoming Events
        • Webinars
      • Subscriptions at the United Church of Christ
      • Changes & Deaths
  • Giving
    • Column
      • Donate Now
      • Ways to Give
        • Giving Tuesday
        • Disaster Ministries: How to Give
        • Our Church’s Wider Mission
          • Our Church’s Wider Mission Basic Support
          • Strengthen the Church
          • One Great Hour of Sharing
          • Neighbors in Need
          • Christmas Fund
          • 5 for 5
    • Column
      • Ways We Give
        • Scholarships & Grants

  • Home
  • News
  • Column
  • Reflexiones
  • “Seeing the elements”

“Seeing the elements”

by Taylor Ramage | published on Feb 23, 2022


In Theology of Creation in an Evolutionary World, Karl Schmitz-Moorman defines evolution as the mechanism through which God creates by uniting small parts into greater, more complex wholes. The new thing that arises from this unity both contains the old from which it came and is also something beyond the old.

Science can observe that water is made from two hydrogen atoms uniting with one oxygen atom but cannot find water looking at the elements individually. In other words, water is not clearly inevitable from hydrogen and oxygen, yet their union creates a new reality, an increasingly complex level of evolution.

Imagine looking at water and saying that it’s “not hydrogen enough” or “not oxygen enough” because you can’t perceive these elements when you see it.

It sounds silly, but this is an experience many Latines have. Black Latines hear that they are not Black enough or not Latine enough. Diaspora Latines who don’t speak Spanish hear that they don’t count because they don’t live in their ancestral homeland, and they don’t understand the language of those countries. White and white-passing Latines face the tempting ease of assimilation into a culture that wants to read them as white to the exclusion of anything else.

If evolution is achieved by unity, and is God’s creative process, then this erasure, whether it comes from ourselves or from others, is a denial of God’s creation. It’s presuming that because you can’t see someone’s Blackness or Latinidad in a way that you accept, they must not be made of those elements.

But you can’t see hydrogen and oxygen when you look at water, either.

Why, then, do we deny the elements that we are composed of? Why, by cultural gatekeeping, do we say that God cannot combine existing elements to create something new that is both fully of those old elements and something never seen before? By this refusal, we stubbornly insist that God is not creating, and who are we to say that the act of creation has stopped?

To deny the elements that form us is to deny the evolutionary process of unity through which God is still creating, still speaking in this world. We should repent of such arrogance so we might clearly see the full beauty God has imparted in the world, from the smallest particles to our boundary-pushing lived experiences.

God of continuous creation, help us to understand that you always bring new possibilities into being, even when we cannot see the old elements we know in the newness. Foster in us a humble spirit to remove the identity litmus tests for ourselves and others so we can behold the magnificence of your work. Amen.

Taylor Ramage is a professional writer/editor and an author with a YA fantasy short story coming up in the Latinx anthology Where Monsters Lurk and Magic Hides. She is the creator and host of the Encuentros Latinx Podcast.

Her poetry collections, Forgive Us Our Trespasses and Lest I Know Your Weakness are available on Amazon in ebook and paperback format. She currently serves on the Central Atlantic Conference Board of Directors and has been a delegate to association meetings, conference meetings, and General Synod. She brings years of experience developing and editing K-12 educational curricula in a myriad of subject areas. You can follow Taylor on Twitter @TaylorRamage or follow her blog www.taylorramage.wordpress.com.

Categories: Column Reflexiones

Get the UCC in your inbox!

Sign up for the weekly UCC News Digest

Privacy Policy
 
 

Related News

Witness for Justice
Witness for Justice

Tug of War

Over the past month, our nation has been anxiously watching the “debt ceiling” tug of war...

Read More
Justice & Peace Action Network Monthly Newsletter

JPANet June 2023 Newsletter

Each month we ask UCC advocates to help us unpack the complex justice issues that we’re...

Read More
Getting to the Root of It

A Moral Call to End Solitary Confinement, Torture in Our Name

This summer, as the United Church of Christ gathers for the Thirty-Fourth General Synod,...

Read More
  • Column
    • Local Church and Conference Resource Directory
    • Mission
    • Justice & Local Church Ministries
    • Wider Church Ministries
    • General Synod Resolutions
    • How can I find local churches near me? Click here!
  • Column
    • Contact
    • News
    • Store

Content on ucc.org is copyrighted by the National Setting of the United Church of Christ and may be only shared according to the guidelines outlined here.

1300 E. 9th Street, Suite 1100
Cleveland, Ohio 44114

  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Instagram
  • Subscribe on YouTube

Donate Now


UCC Crest
© United Church of Christ 2023. Privacy Policy.
Crafted by Cornershop Creative