A VISUAL OF THE CHRISTIAN GOSPEL
Love at the Center; Life in Motion
by R.E. Slater
The gospel is not a doctrine,
nor creed to defend -
but a pattern of love,
learning how to move.
LOVE, AS THE CENTER
“God is love.”
Love is not merely one theme among others—it is the interpretive key that holds all six movements together. Remove love, and the gospel fractures. Keep love central, and the whole becomes luminous.
① Incarnation - God-with-us
The gospel begins not with escape from the world but with presence within it. God enters history, body, vulnerability, and relationship.
② Compassion - Love felt and enacted
Jesus reveals a God who suffers with creation. Healing, table-fellowship, and solidarity define holiness.
③ Justice - Love made social
The gospel is not private salvation alone. It confronts oppression, restores dignity, and reorders communities toward the common good.
④ Transformation - New life already unfolding
Salvation is not only future-oriented. Hearts, minds, relationships, and systems are renewed here and now.
⑤ Forgiveness - Reconciled relationship
Not legal erasure but relational repair. Forgiveness restores communion—between God, neighbor, self, and creation.
⑥ Resurrection - Hope that outlasts death
The final word is not violence, failure, or entropy, but creative life renewed—for persons, peoples, and the cosmos.
How to Use This Hexagram
Meditatively: Sit with one point at a time, then return to the center.
Theologically: As a non-reductive summary of Christian faith.
Visually: As a diagram, poster, or illuminated manuscript-style illustration.
Practically: As a diagnostic—Which movement is missing in our theology or church?
Below is a version of the Living Gospel. Designed not to be read, but to be entered. To function as a sacred instrument reading music where direction changes meaning, and motion generates insight.
A LIVING GOSPEL
as a rule of movement, not as a static creed
INWARD
From the edges of the soul inward towards the heart - This is the path of incarnation.
From the edges of the soul inward towards the heart - This is the path of incarnation.
Incarnation → Compassion → Justice → Transformation → Forgiveness → Resurrection → Love
- God enters the world
- God feels the world
- God reorders the world
- God renews the world
- God reconciles the world
- God outlives the world’s death
- And is revealed as Love
An inward reading discloses what God is.
Presence condenses into essence.
Multiplicity converges into Love.
From the center of the soul outward towards the world - This is the path of mission.
Love → Incarnation → Compassion → Justice → Transformation → Forgiveness → Resurrection
- Love refuses abstraction
- Love becomes embodied
- Love becomes merciful
- Love becomes just
- Love becomes creative
- Love becomes reconciling
- Love becomes hope beyond death
An outward reading discloses what love can do.
Essence becomes action.
The center radiates life.
CLOCKWISE
From the spiral of historical becoming encompassing time, growth, and life's processes.
Incarnation → Compassion → Forgiveness → Transformation → Justice → Resurrection
- Presence awakens empathy
- Empathy opens reconciliation
- Reconciliation enables change
- Change demands justice
- Justice anticipates renewal
- Renewal overcomes death
A clockwise reading reveals the gospel as evolving faith.
It matures. It bends history.
Slowly, toward healing.
COUNTERCLOCKWISE
From prophetic reversal comes prophetic critique, disruption, and judgment-as-healing.
From prophetic reversal comes prophetic critique, disruption, and judgment-as-healing.
Resurrection → Justice → Transformation → Forgiveness → Compassion → Incarnation
- Hope confronts despair
- Justice unmasks violence
- Transformation disrupts stagnation
- Forgiveness dismantles cycles of blame
- Compassion dissolves distance
- Incarnation abolishes separation
A counterclockwise reading reveals the gospel as resistance.
The future interrupts the present.
Grace overturns fear-based religion.
VERTICAL AXIS (UP / DOWN)
From Transcendence ↕ Immanence:
From Transcendence ↕ Immanence:
- Upward: Incarnation → Resurrection
- God enters matter; matter is lifted into life.
- Downward: Resurrection → Incarnation
- Eternity returns to dwell among the vulnerable.
The vertical axis refuses escape theology.
Heaven is not elsewhere. It is here.
It descends and abides.
HORIZONTAL AXIS (LEFT / RIGHT)
From Ethics ↔ Relationship:
- Leftwards: Compassion → Forgiveness
- The healing of persons.
- Rightwards: Justice → Transformation
- The healing of systems.
The horizontal axis prevents moral distortion.
There can be no justice without mercy.
There can be no mercy without loving justice.
THE STILLED CENTER
From the stilled center comes that which doesn't move - yet moves all things.
From the stilled center comes that which doesn't move - yet moves all things.
LOVE is not -sentiment,command,demand,nor reward.But relational energyindwelt with divine lure -toward greater beauty,deeper connection,and shared becoming.
All directions originate from Love's center.
All movements return to it's core theme.
Love is the coda that revives.
EMBODIMENT PRACTICE
- Meditation: Sit at the center; breathe one movement per breath.
- Liturgy: Read one direction per season of the church year.
- Ethics: Ask which vector your theology overemphasizes—and which it neglects.
- Art: Render the visuals as stained glass, illumined manuscript, or kinetic diagram.
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| Rose Window . Famous stained glass window inside Notre Dame Cathedral. Paris is a photograph by Bernard Jaubert which was uploaded on July 10th, 2014. |
A BECOMING CONCRESCENCE
Presence enters becoming.
Becoming feels the many as one.
The many respond becoming more, together.
The "more together" are lured into deeper harmony.
Deeper harmony bends order without force.
Without force justice learns patience.
Patience releases the past.
The past is carried forward transformed.
Transformed life refuses final endings.
Final endings open unto wider relations.
Wider relations feels the many as one.
The many respond, becoming more.
Becoming enters presence.
Presence enters becoming.
This is love's liveliness.
R.E. Slater
January 11, 2026
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved
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| Notre Dame's rose windows date back to the 13th century. (Wikimedia Commons: Krzysztof Mizera) |
ANOTHER GOSPEL HEXAGRAM
As A Poem You Walk Through
🔄 CLOCKWISE (BECOMING)
God arrives → feels → forgives → changes → reorders → outlives death → and returns as love
[A slow spiral. History learning how to heal.]
🔁 COUNTERCLOCKWISE (INTERRUPTION)
Hope breaks in → justice awakens → change disrupts → forgiveness disarms → compassion dissolves distance → God refuses to stay away
Hope breaks in → justice awakens → change disrupts → forgiveness disarms → compassion dissolves distance → God refuses to stay away
[A prophetic reversal. The future interrupts the present.]
⬇⬆ INWARD (CONTEMPLATION)
Many movements
fold
into one truth:
Love is what remains
when fear is gone.
⬆⬇ OUTWARD (MISSION)
Love refuses stillness → is embodied → becomes mercy → becomes justice → becomes renewal → becomes hope
⬆⬇ OUTWARD (MISSION)
Love refuses stillness → is embodied → becomes mercy → becomes justice → becomes renewal → becomes hope
God entered
the world's becoming -
not as force, but as presence.
Feeling the world
each wound a nexus -
each joy retained.
Love's reordering bends
history’s rigid lines -
in patient persuasion.
What is, becomes more
than it was; a new novelty -
born from shared response.
Release loosens the past
renews relationships -
healed in time.
Life is never erased
but carried forward -
lively transformed.
Love is the new allure
of harmony holding -
the many as one.
Life is never erased
but carried forward -
lively transformed.
Release loosens the past
renews relationships -
healed in time.
What is, becomes more
than it was; a new novelty -
born from shared response.
Love's reordering bends
history’s rigid lines -
in patient persuasion.
Feeling the world
each wound a nexus -
each joy retained.
God entered
the world's becoming -
not as force, but as presence.
R.E. Slater
January 11, 2026
@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved
*written as a mirror, feeding back
upon itself ,with no real starting
point, except that of convention.
