The "Tree of Abraham, an Organic Model of Western Civilization," is an
attempt to illustrate the intrinsic cyclic relationship among the three
Abrahamic covenants. They overlap in time, and they are sequential
in time. They overlap in space, and they are sequential in space.
There is an historical flow from the perennial tradition to Abraham,
and then to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. So, we can make a model
that shows the perennial pre-history, surrounded by Judaism, surrounded
by Christianity, surrounded by Islam, and now again, surrounded in the world
by the perennial history we are making today. When we look back in
time through Islam, we see Christianity, and when we look back in time through
Christianity, we see Judaism, and before that, perennial and unbounded history.
This is the flow of civilization and time, moving from a metaphoric Jewish
seed, through a metaphoric Christian tree, to a metaphoric Islamic fruit.
We also have all three traditions as three phases of life, together at
the same time in our time. The conceptual phase is identified with
Judaism, the gestational phase with Christianity, and the letting-go (birthing)
phase with Islam. Of course, each of these phases of faith must include
the other two, because this is all happening all at once, right now, just
as it is also happening eternally, cyclically, and throughout history.
Life grows both ways. Life grows sequentially in time, and it grows
spread out in different organs within an organism at any given time.
