Reflections on a whirlpool

I often used to walk along a river bank on my way into Durham, when I lived there. One of the things that I used to see in the water quite a lot was whirlpools: little whorls of water pulling into a centre. I got to thinking that they give us an interesting analogy for human beings in relation to the rest of creation.

A whirlpool has its own unique identity and can be identified separately from the river, it is a thing in itself apart from the river with its own position, energy and look. And yet it is part of the river; it has nothing apart from the matter and energy given to it by the river. It is a unique thing that draws its whole being from the molecules and energy flows of the river. It is the river and yet it is more than the river.

We humans have our own position, energy and look and yet we are part of the creation, we live through matter; our whole being is matter and energy flows. Just as the whirlpool exists and moves through the water of the river, we exist and move through the matter of the world in which we are. We are a constant rearrangement of matter, an energy flow in motion through materiality. But more than that too. Not just drawing from and moving through matter but also society, language, family and friendship. We take our being from these things, reconfigure them to be unique individuals and move through them to live our lives. We are a kind of whirlpool through the stuff of creation. And not just the material stuff, but the emergent stuff too; the systems and the mindscapes.

We cannot be without these other things in place. God created us from the dust of the earth; we are ensouled matter. And yet we are corporately in God's image, we are individualised society [rather than, as our society tends to believe, socialised individuals], the corporate is prior and that from which we draw our being in society.