An old hymn says “carry the old wooden cross, and exchange it at last for a crown”. Follow Christ through suffering and sacrifice, to become at last not only the King of the Jews, but the Crown of Creation. Suffering CAN redeem, sacrifice CAN be accepted – be “made sacred (literally). Unhinged through spreading fluctuations, a system CAN ascend to a higher order, through a Via Dolorosa. We live at the edge of Chaos, and must pass through it to a higher Order at each turn of the spiral, on the way from Alpha to Omega. That is the essence of the Creation in which we participate.

Are we humans a Crown species, or even THE Crown species? The tree of evolution has many tops of branches – the flowers, the insects, the mammals. I used to think that it was hubris to consider ourselves unique. I thought that God or Nature had other options if we fail. But what if insects are really not another option? What if the tape of evolution rewound would be extremely unlikely to produce another option capable of going to the Omega point? What if there are no other options in the solar system, in other solar systems, in other galaxies, in the whole universe, in other multiple universes? The thought does not arouse hubris, but the awesome humility of responsibility. I think of the picture of Hope, the pale green draped figure sitting on the globe of the world, head hung low, blindfold across the eyes, plucking the only remaining string of her harp, the other strings all broken. Is Hope street really a dead-end street with no exit?

If God really depends on our co-creation activity for His very existence, we are in trouble. At any moment, the whole system may crash into non-existence, to not only end, but to have never been, sub specie aeternitatis.

My friends and hosts this week, Ruth and Walter Klaassen, live on Crown Crescent in Vernon, B.C. This has given rise to this somewhat incoherent reverie. So far there are no houses higher up on this mountain above Lake Okanagan. It is like Summit Circle in Westmount in Montreal. I could be proud to be here, but the heights make me dizzy. Pride is the deadliest of the deadly sins, and the nausea of non-being (Sartre) goes with the dizziness of responsibility. You climb Mount Everest and you pass out from lack of oxygen.

The Crone is the Third Person of the Holy Trinity of the Goddess religions. The Virgin, the Mother, and the Crone – the three ages of woman. She has many names – Demeter (Mother of God), Kali (agent of destruction), Gaia (the living Earth). She is the Mother who bears children, but often eats them, in repeated Great Extinctions, and in steady small extinctions all along. The Earth also means the soil which receives the dead and recycles them to new life. The Crone does not go Alpha to Omega, like Her Divine Spouse, but in cycles. Their combination creates the Holy Spiral of evolution, whose symbol is the DNA molecule – a structure of supreme sacred beauty. The Holy Writ of the Word (Logos) is written on it, in four-letter words like Love and Life and Hope and Fear. The Crone and God (Sophia and Yahwe) created it, but She can wipe it out with just a swish of Her tail. It might even be Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) to do so.

The Way of the Cross may lead to ruin rather than to the Crown. O God, O Goddess, what must I do to keep ascending the Spiral – though dizzy with nausea? How can I keep close to You, to be nourished but not devoured? I love you and I fear you, but love has not yet cast out fear.