An Ontology of Becoming - Rupture & Realignment (39)

ESSAY 39

"WHAT IS REALITY" SERIES

IDENTITY, BECOMING, & RELATIONAL DIRECTIONALITY

An Ontology of Becoming -

Rupture & Realignment

An Exploration of the Pattern of Relational Becoming:

Rupture, Destabilization, and the Failure of Continuity

Becoming II - Interruption and Becoming

by R.E. Slater and ChatGPT

Essay Series Motifs

The Story of Jonah: 

Being → Rupture → Descent → Transformation → Reconciliation

deconstruction → liminality → reconstruction → post-certainty participation →

relational openness

The Central Guiding Question

What happens when continuity refuses transformation?

Observations

Jonah is not merely about disobedience,

but about the terrifying instability of becoming.

- R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Every genuine transformation passes through interruption.

- Inspired by Alfred North Whitehead

What if continuity itself becomes the very obstacle to becoming?

- R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

The storm was not punishment alone.

It was the collapse of a world too small to contain mercy.

- R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Reality does not always fail through destruction.

Sometimes it fails through refusal.

- R.E. Slater & ChatGPT

Series Objective

To articulate a relational ontology grounded in contemporary
physics and biology, in which reality is understood as coherence,

information, and process rather than as substance, isolation,

and atomistic models of reality.

Series Architecture

What Is Reality? series → foundational ontology
Cosmic Becoming Cycle → poetic and metaphysical expansion
Embodied Process Realism → formal philosophical framework
Processual Divine Coherence → theological bridge

How Reality Persists → continuity within becoming

Essay Outline

Preface

I - The Silence After Interruption

II - When Continuity Refuses Transformation

III - Jonah and the Fear of Nineveh

IV - The Failure of Becoming

V - Realignment After Rupture

VI - Coda: The Fear of Openness

Poem

Bibliography

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Preface

The preceding Jonah essays (37-38)  explored continuity, descent, enclosure, destabilization, and the terrifying fragility of embodied becoming once interruption enters the continuity of reality.

What began initially as a narrative companion to the ontological essays of the Reality & Cosmology Series has gradually evolved into something more existential, atmospheric, and psychologically revealing. Jonah has become not merely a biblical figure within an ancient story, but a narrative enactment of the process of rupture itself.

For ontology eventually reaches a threshold where structure becomes lived experience.

And once continuity fractures personally, historically, spiritually, politically, or civilizationally, the deeper question is no longer merely:

What is reality?

But rather:

What becomes of being when continuity refuses transformation?

This essay enters that threshold directly.

For interruption alone does not guarantee becoming.

Descent alone does not ensure transformation.

Exposure alone does not reconcile the self to openness.

Reality may instead harden against becoming.

The process of continuity may instead contract inward toward:

• exclusion,
• rigidity,
• resentment,
• domination,
• tribal closure,
• or fear of relational expansion.

Identity itself may resist the very interruptions capable of generating renewed participation within unfolding reality.

This is the deeper struggle now emerging within Jonah.

The earlier essays emphasized:

• destabilization,
• descent,
• enclosure,
• and the collapse of fixed continuity.

But here a more difficult ontological tension surfaces:

the human resistance to becoming itself 

*refer to Appendix A below for the question, "Can Nature Resist Becoming?"

Jonah therefore becomes not merely a figure swallowed by rupture, but a study in partial becoming:

• reluctant transformation,
• wounded continuity,
• fearful openness,
• and resisted reconciliation.

Importantly, Jonah’s struggle is not presented as uniquely personal failure alone. Rather, it reflects a recurring pattern visible throughout the biblical world surrounding him.

Israel itself repeatedly struggled between:

• covenant vs. covenantal exclusion,
• mercy vs. ascetic tribalism,
• openness vs. fear, folklore, superstitions,
• prophetic transformation vs. institutional rigidity.

Empires hardened themselves against relational becoming through domination and conquest.

Priestly systems often resisted interruption in defense of inherited certainty.

Religious continuity repeatedly attempts preserving itself against the destabilizing expansion of compassion, mercy, justice, and relational participation.

Within this wider historical atmosphere Jonah becomes deeply representative.

He fears Nineveh not merely because it is dangerous, but because it threatens inherited continuity itself.

For Nineveh represents:

• the enemy-world,
• the feared Other,
• the destabilization of tribal coherence,
• and the terrifying possibility that mercy may expand beyond the boundaries continuity had previously permitted.

Thus Jonah’s resistance becomes existentially recognizable.

For human beings often desire transformation abstractly while resisting it concretely once becoming threatens:

• identity,
• certainty,
• belonging,
• inherited coherence,
• or structures of moral containment.

This is why rupture frequently produces not immediate openness, but defensive contraction.

And yet the narrative refuses to abandon becoming entirely.

The storm still interrupts.

The sea still destabilizes.

The descent still exposes.

The wheel of continuity still fractures overhead.

And reality itself continues pressing toward relational expansion despite the self’s resistance against it.

Thus this essay explores:

• rupture,
• destabilization,
• resistance,
• failed becoming,
• ontological contraction,
• and the painful realignment required before continuity may once again participate within relational openness.

For becoming is not always welcomed.

Sometimes the self must first confront the terrifying realization that continuity itself may have become the very obstacle preventing transformation.

And perhaps this is the deepest disclosure now emerging within Jonah:

that interruption is not merely destruction.

It may also become the painful beginning of reorientation toward a reality larger, more relational, and more open than continuity alone was ever capable of containing.

---

I - The Silence After Interruption

The storm had ended.

But interruption had not.

The sea no longer convulsed beneath the violence of rupture. The winds had withdrawn into uneasy stillness. The ship survived. The sailors remained alive. Jonah himself had emerged from enclosure beneath the deep.

And yet nothing had truly returned unchanged.

This is one of the great illusions surrounding rupture:

that survival itself constitutes reconciliation.

But interruption often lingers long after catastrophe subsides.

The outward violence may cease while inward continuity remains fractured beneath the surface of being. The self survives disruption only to discover that the inherited structures once stabilizing identity no longer hold with the same unquestioned coherence as before.

Something remains unsettled.

Jonah now inhabits precisely this threshold.

His very real and very existential descent has occurred.

The "belly of sheol," his enclosure, has passed.

The harsh interruption has exposed him.

And yet transformation remains incomplete.

For rupture alone does not automatically produce openness.

Sometimes interruption merely reveals how deeply continuity fears becoming.

This is especially true when continuity has become inseparable from identity itself.

Human beings do not merely inhabit ideas. They inhabit worlds:

• inherited moral systems,
• symbolic structures,
• historical memories,
• collective fears,
• relational loyalties,
• and continuity frameworks capable of sustaining coherence across time.

When interruption destabilizes those frameworks, the self experiences more than intellectual uncertainty.

It experiences existential dislocation.

Perceived reality itself begins trembling beneath inherited belonging.

And often the first instinct is not self-transformation.

It is self-preservation.

The self seeks stabilization against the destabilizing openness now emerging beneath continuity itself. Identity narrows toward defensiveness. Familiar structures become even more sacred precisely because interruption has exposed their fragility. The possibility of transformation begins feeling dangerous rather than liberating.

This is where Jonah now stands.

Not yet reconciled.

Not yet transformed.

Not yet open.

Only interrupted.

And perhaps this explains why the narrative remains so psychologically powerful across centuries of human experience.

For many survive rupture without yet knowing how to re-enter becoming afterward.

The catastrophe ends.

But the continuity capable of carrying meaning forward has not yet been rebuilt.

The world remains,

yet it remains differently.

The self continues,

yet uncertainly continues as well.

The old stability no longer holds,

but the new relational openness has not yet fully emerged.

One exists suspended between worlds.

This is Jonah’s condition after interruption.

And perhaps it is increasingly humanity’s condition as well.

For modern existence unfolds beneath mounting destabilizations:

• political fracture,
• institutional collapse,
• ecological collapse,
• catastrophic wars and hatred,
• spiritual displacement,
• technological acceleration,
• and inherited continuities increasingly unable to stabilize identity with the certainty they once promised.

The old frameworks tremble.

Yet becoming itself remains frightening.

And thus continuity often retreats inward toward self-preservation precisely when relational openness becomes most necessary.

This is where the deeper danger begins emerging.

For continuity can slowly harden against reality itself.

Not because continuity is inherently false, but because interruption exposes the terrifying possibility that reality may remain larger, more relational, and more open than inherited systems were ever designed to contain comfortably.

Jonah now stands before precisely this terrifying threshold.

The storm interrupted him.

The sea exposed him.

The descent shattered him.

Yet the self still resists the openness now pressing upon his continuity from beyond its former boundaries.

And so the deeper, more personal struggle begins.

---

II - When Continuity Refuses Transformation

At first glance Jonah appears to flee merely from obedience.

But the narrative is more psychologically and ontologically complex than simple disobedience alone.

For Jonah’s flight is not merely avoidance of command.

It is resistance to transformation.

And perhaps even more deeply:

it is resistance to a reality larger than the continuity he has inherited, inhabited, and trusted to define the limits of divine participation itself.

This distinction matters profoundly.

Because interruption alone does not guarantee becoming.

The storm may destabilize continuity.

The descent may expose fragility.

The rupture may fracture inherited certainty.

Yet even after interruption enters reality,
continuity may still harden against transformation.

Indeed, this may be one of the deepest patterns within embodied existence:

the self often desires stability more than openness,

certainty more than becoming,

and inherited coherence more than relational expansion.

Jonah therefore becomes existentially recognizable precisely because he resists what he already suspects to be true - but cannot accept.

He fears that mercy may move beyond the boundaries he considers morally acceptable.

And this possibility terrifies him.

For Nineveh is not merely another city within the narrative.

It is the enemy-world. The hated Other. And for good reason -

It was evil. It was wicked. It deserved divine destruction not divine rescue.

Historically, Assyria represented domination, violence, imperial cruelty, displacement, and fear throughout the ancient Near Eastern imagination. Its power threatened Israel politically, culturally, militarily, and psychologically. Nineveh therefore carried symbolic force beyond geography alone.

It represented the terrifying Other.

The hated civilization beyond covenant familiarity.

The feared outside world toward which mercy should not logically extend.

And perhaps this is why Jonah fled towards the sea. To sail in the opposite direction AWAY from the Assyrian capital, Nineveh

Not because he doubts God’s power,

but because he suspects God’s openness.

This insight alters the narrative dramatically.

Jonah’s crisis is not atheistic disbelief.

It is relational resistance.

He fears a reality too open for the continuity he wishes to preserve.

For if Nineveh may participate within divine mercy, then inherited boundaries begin destabilizing:

• enemy and neighbor,
• insider and outsider,
• justice and compassion,
• covenant and universality,
• continuity and becoming.

Suddenly the continuity Jonah trusted no longer appears fixed.

And this is the deeper terror introduced through interruption.

For continuity structures do not merely organize thought.

They stabilize identity itself.

---

III - Jonah and the Fear of Nineveh

To modern readers the name Nineveh may initially appear distant, abstract, or merely historical. Yet within Jonah’s world the city represented something far more existentially destabilizing than geography alone.

Nineveh symbolized the terrifying continuity of empire.

Assyria stood among the great imperial powers of the ancient Near East:

• expansionist,
• excessively violent,
• cruel,
• militarized,
• and psychologically overwhelming to smaller nations living beneath its rule.

Entire populations feared its campaigns, its political domination, its capacity for conquest, and its ruthless reputation throughout the region.

Thus Jonah’s resistance emerges within a deeply historical atmosphere of fear.

This matters greatly.

For Jonah’s struggle is not simply theological abstraction.

• It is embodied.
• Political.
• Civilizational.
• National.
• Psychological.

The prophet does not merely dislike Nineveh.

He hates what Nineveh represents.

And perhaps more deeply:

he questions his faith in a God who would show mercy

towards a people who are so evil and wicked.

while questioning what this might imply about reality itself.

For if God's mercy can extend towards an evil empire,

then continuity itself begins destabilizing at its deepest moral boundaries.

And all the religious-covenantal jargon of living fairly, justly, righteously,

that he was taught and believed has become as dung.

His inherited distinctions were crumbling between:

• righteous and unrighteous,
• chosen and enemy,
• covenant and outsider,
• justice and mercy,
• protection and openness.

The continuity structures anchoring identity no longer appear secure.

And this is precisely why interruption becomes so threatening.

Because transformation often arrives not through abstract philosophical insight, but through unwanted relational expansion toward persons, peoples, or realities the self has already judged beyond divine care and participation.

This remains one of the most difficult dimensions of becoming.

For continuity naturally seeks stabilization.

Communities construct moral worlds capable of preserving identity across generations. Nations organize memory around survival. Religions establish symbolic frameworks through which meaning, belonging, and coherence may endure across historical uncertainty.

These functions are not inherently false.

• For without continuity, identity fragments.
• Without memory, meaning dissolves.
• Without inherited structure, existence becomes unstable.

And yet continuity also carries danger -

For eventually the structures preserving coherence may themselves begin resisting relational expansion once becoming threatens inherited boundaries.

At that moment continuity slowly transforms from living participation into defensive preservation.

This is Jonah’s crisis.

He senses that divine mercy may move beyond the limits his continuity permits.

And he cannot bear it.

The prophet therefore flees not because God is absent,

but because God remains terrifyingly present beyond inherited containment.

This insight reveals something profound about the ontology of becoming itself.

Reality does not merely confront the self through suffering alone. Sometimes reality confronts the self through expansion. Through unwanted openness. Through relational participation extending beyond familiar boundaries of identity and belonging.

And often the self resists this more fiercely than rupture itself. For rupture threatens continuity externally. But relational expansion threatens continuity internally. It asks the self to become otherwise.

Jonah therefore embodies a deeply recognizable existential tension: the desire to preserve moral certainty against the destabilizing demands of openness.

This tension appears repeatedly throughout human history. Communities fearing outsiders. Nations preserving identity through exclusion. Religious systems resisting transformation in defense of inherited certainty. Civilizations preferring domination over relational participation. Again and again continuity contracts inward when becoming threatens established structures of belonging.

And yet the narrative of Jonah refuses validating such contraction fully.

The story continually pressures continuity outward toward relational expansion despite the prophet’s resistance against it. The storm interrupts him. The sea destabilizes him. The descent exposes him. And Nineveh continues waiting beyond the boundaries Jonah wishes reality itself to maintain.

This is what makes the narrative so psychologically enduring. For Jonah confronts the terrifying possibility that reality may remain morally larger than inherited continuity can comfortably contain. And perhaps this remains one of humanity’s deepest fears. Not merely suffering. But openness itself.

---

IV - The Failure of Becoming

One of the most difficult truths confronting any ontology of openness is that becoming can fail.

Not absolutely.

Not permanently.

But genuinely.

Continuity may resist transformation. Identity may contract inward. Relational participation may be refused.

This possibility introduces tragic depth into the ontology of becoming itself. For openness is not inevitable progress. Transformation is not guaranteed. And reality may remain relationally open while embodied beings nevertheless refuse participation within that openness.

Jonah now stands precisely within this tragic threshold. The interruption has already occurred. The storm shattered continuity. The sea exposed vulnerability. The descent dismantled inherited stability. Yet the self still resists.

This resistance matters profoundly because it reveals that rupture alone cannot complete transformation. Catastrophe does not automatically produce wisdom. Suffering does not necessarily enlarge relational participation. Exposure itself may instead intensify defensiveness, resentment, and contraction against becoming.

Human beings frequently survive interruption while refusing the transformations interruption invites. Look at the global pandemic of covid... did it create a more just world? Or the global destruction of ecological events... did it create a world more responsive to one another?

Russia invades Ukraine and frames it as "God's holy will." Israel responds to Palestinian terror-bombing and cruel-kidnapping by removing a whole population from its homeland in Gaza. Then, with the United States, they together strike Iran's terror-regime in its own lands and the terroist organization of Hezbollah in Lebanon. All the while African nation-states reign cruelty upon tribal opponents. And across Asia, families and communities are oppressed and persecuted for color, race, and religion, even as America is doing to its own citizens calling it "border-control."

No, it does not seem that interruption, or rupture, or disaster, or destruction, can change humanity's heart alone. It needs the wisdom to stop and see; and the courage to unite and bond; if it is to not only survive, but thrive with one another as with this earth.

This is why continuity often hardens after rupture.

• Fear seeks stabilization.
• Identity seeks preservation.
• The self attempts reconstructing coherence against the terrifying openness now emerging beyond inherited boundaries.

Jonah’s resistance therefore should not be understood merely as moral stubbornness. It is ontological contraction. The narrowing of participation against relational expansion. And perhaps nowhere is this more visible than in Jonah’s inability to rejoice at Nineveh’s possible transformation. For the prophet ultimately prefers continuity through judgment rather than openness through mercy.

This is an extraordinarily difficult revelation within the narrative.

Because Jonah’s resistance is understandable. Unjust empire's wound. Its violence scars memory. Historical suffering produces defensive continuity structures through which communities attempt preserving identity against annihilation.

Jonah’s fear is not irrational - but neither is it capable of sustaining becoming.

This is the paradox now emerging.

Continuity may protect identity temporarily - while simultaneously obstructing relational expansion necessary for further becoming. At such moments continuity ceases functioning as living participation and instead becomes rigidified preservation. The self narrows toward:

• resentment,
• exclusion,
• certainty,
• domination,
• tribalism,
• and defensive moral containment.

This pattern appears repeatedly throughout history. Civilizations harden themselves against openness. Religions contract inward toward certainty. Institutions preserve themselves against interruption. Nations protect continuity through exclusionary identity structures. And individuals cling to inherited worlds despite their inability to continue sustaining relational participation honestly.

The possibility of anti-becoming therefore remains permanently present within reality. Not because reality itself closes, but because embodied participation may refuse openness.

This distinction is crucial. For the ontology of becoming cannot become naïve optimism. Transformation is fragile. Participation remains vulnerable. Coherence can collapse. Continuity can rigidify. And openness may be resisted precisely when it becomes most necessary.

This does not invalidate becoming. Rather, it reveals the ethical seriousness of participation itself. Reality remains unfinished. And thus continuity carries responsibility. The self continually participates either toward: relational expansion or defensive contraction. Toward openness or closure. Toward becoming or anti-becoming.

Jonah therefore becomes more than isolated prophet. He becomes mirror. And perhaps this is why the narrative remains perpetually unsettling. Because the reader increasingly recognizes the same tensions within:

• communities,
• institutions,
• nations,
• religions,
• civilizations,
• and the self itself.

The fear of becoming remains profoundly alive.

Especially when transformation threatens inherited continuity deeply enough to expose the instability beneath identity itself.

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V - Realignment After Rupture

And yet the narrative does not end in collapse. This is important. For although Jonah resists becoming, the story nevertheless continues pressing toward relational expansion.

Reality itself remains open even when participation within that openness becomes reluctant, incomplete, or wounded. This movement toward realignment emerges slowly throughout the narrative. Not triumphantly. Not cleanly. And certainly not through perfected reconciliation.

Jonah never becomes idealized saint. The narrative refuses such simplification. Instead the prophet remains:

• conflicted,
• resistant,
• fearful,
• wounded,
• and only partially transformed.

This unresolvedness gives the narrative extraordinary existential honesty.

For genuine transformation rarely occurs all at once. More often becoming unfolds painfully through gradual reorientation after continuity has already fractured beneath interruption. The self slowly learns:

• not certainty,
  but fragility;
• not mastery,
  but participation;
• not permanence,
  but openness.

And perhaps this is the deeper function of rupture within relational becoming.

Not destruction for its own sake.

But destabilization sufficient to reopen continuity toward realities larger than inherited structures were previously capable of containing.

Jonah’s descent therefore becomes more than punishment narrative. It becomes interruption capable of exposing the limits of defensive continuity itself. The storm shattered illusion. The sea dismantled false stability. The descent exposed the self. And now reality slowly presses Jonah toward realignment beyond inherited closure.

Importantly, this realignment remains unfinished.

Jonah never fully resolves his resentment toward mercy. The prophet remains existentially unsettled by divine openness extending beyond the boundaries he considers morally acceptable.

And this unresolvedness matters deeply. Because becoming itself remains unfinished. The narrative therefore refuses easy closure. Instead it leaves readers suspended within relational tension:

• between continuity and openness,
• identity and expansion,
• justice and mercy,
• self-preservation and becoming.

This tension is not weakness within the text. It is precisely the point. For the ontology of becoming does not culminate in static perfection. It culminates in continued participation within unfinished relational reality.

And perhaps this is the deepest disclosure now emerging through Jonah - that realignment begins not when certainty returns, but when inherited continuity finally loosens its resistance against relational becoming enough for processual openness to enter once again.

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VI - Coda: The Fear of Openness

Perhaps the deepest human fear is not suffering alone. Nor interruption. Nor even collapse. Perhaps the deeper fear is openness itself.

For openness destabilizes inherited certainty. It widens continuity beyond familiar boundaries. It exposes the self to realities larger than identity previously permitted.

And thus becoming often feels terrifying precisely because it demands participation within unfinishedness.

Jonah stands permanently within this threshold. Not fully reconciled. Not fully transformed. Not fully open. Yet nevertheless unable to return unchanged to the continuity that existed before interruption entered his world.

This may ultimately explain why the narrative remains perpetually alive across history. For Jonah dramatizes one of reality’s deepest existential tensions: the struggle between continuity and becoming.

• The self longs for stability. Yet reality continues unfolding relationally beyond inherited containment.

• The self seeks closure. Yet openness continues pressing against the boundaries continuity constructs to preserve itself.

• The self fears transformation. Yet interruption repeatedly returns wherever continuity hardens against becoming itself.

Thus the narrative refuses simplistic moral resolution. Instead Jonah becomes an existential enactment of unfinished participation within relational reality. The prophet survives rupture. But survival alone does not complete transformation. The deeper struggle remains:

whether continuity will contract inward toward exclusion,

or reopen itself toward relational expansion once again.

And perhaps this remains the enduring question confronting every civilization, every religion, every institution, and every self standing beneath the trembling wheel of becoming:

Can continuity surrender itself enough to participate within a reality larger than it was ever capable of containing alone?

---

The Fear of Openness

The storm had passed,
yet the heart still trembled
beneath a disturbing unquiet.

The sea had grown calm

but its continuity no longer moved
as it once had moved before.

It felt unsettled, dangerous.

A crack appeared and widened -
Not in the sky alone,
nor in the perceived destiny ahead,
but within the architecture of being itself.

For the prophet feared

a fear unfelt before -
not merely his own destruction,

but that of divine mercy indwelling.

No mere collapse

of self and soul,
but of untethered openness

beyond his fathom upwelling.

Of a possible reality
that might be larger
than the boundaries
his beliefs had depended.

And yet the prophet resisted

the call of God into his life -

who before had said "yes"

but could only say "no" now.

He resisted as nations resist.
As all religions resist.
As wounded selves deeply resist
the painful widening of becoming.

Underneath and around him

the sea moved in large swells,

and with it the shifting wind,

but none could be found

to help nor assist within

the waters and winds and quiet.

Across the threatening heavens

a scar across the horizon opened,
and morning light pressed gently
against the closure of the world

that reigned about.

And somewhere beyond the storm,
beyond the sea,

beyond the city,

beyond the fragile human heart,

even beyond the trembling

continuity of the self,

a becoming pressed and waited

for assent -

for participation -
for ascent -

refusing chaining fear,

releasing prophetic voice.

R.E. Slater

May 24, 2026

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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I. Biblical Texts and Ancient Near Eastern Contexts

The Holy Bible. New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021.

Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary. 3 vols. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018.

Blenkinsopp, Joseph. A History of Prophecy in Israel. Rev. ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.

Freedman, David Noel, ed. Anchor Bible Dictionary. 6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Liverani, Mario. Israel’s History and the History of Israel. London: Equinox Publishing, 2005.

Sweeney, Marvin A. The Twelve Prophets. 2 vols. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000.

Walton, John H. Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2018.

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II. Process Philosophy, Ontology, and Relational Becoming

Alfred North Whitehead. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. Corrected ed. Edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: Free Press, 1978.

Alfred North Whitehead. Adventures of Ideas. New York: Free Press, 1967.

Alfred North Whitehead. Religion in the Making. New York: Fordham University Press, 1996.

Cobb Jr., John B., and David Ray Griffin. Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1976.

Clayton, Philip. Adventures in the Spirit: God, World, Divine Action. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008.

Keller, Catherine. Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming. London: Routledge, 2003.

Suchocki, Marjorie Hewitt. God, Christ, Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology. New York: Crossroad, 1982.

Segall, Matthew David. Physics of the World-Soul: Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology. Falmouth, UK: Piranha Press, 2021.

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III. Phenomenology, Existentialism, and Embodied Experience

Martin Heidegger. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Phenomenology of Perception. Translated by Colin Smith. London: Routledge, 2002.

Søren Kierkegaard. The Sickness Unto Death. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.

Paul Tillich. The Courage to Be. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952.

Viktor Frankl. Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006.

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IV. Political Theology, Empire, and Historical Consciousness

Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination. 2nd ed. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001.

Cavanaugh, William T. The Myth of Religious Violence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Niebuhr, Reinhold. Moral Man and Immoral Society. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001.

Yoder, John Howard. The Politics of Jesus. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994.

Wink, Walter. Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1984.

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V. Consciousness, Meaning, and Relational Reality

McGilchrist, Iain. The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019.

Nagel, Thomas. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962.

Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2007.

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VI. Ecology, Complexity, and Adaptive Systems

Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Capra, Fritjof. The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems. New York: Anchor Books, 1997.

Kauffman, Stuart A. At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Prigogine, Ilya, and Isabelle Stengers. Order Out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature. New York: Bantam Books, 1984.

Rescher, Nicholas. Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1996..

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VII. Literary and Symbolic Influences

Milan Kundera. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Translated by Michael Henry Heim. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 3rd ed. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2008.

Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace, 1987.

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VIII. Series Context and Companion Essays

Slater, R.E., and ChatGPT. The Reality & Cosmology Series. Relevancy22 Blog Series, 2025–2026.

Slater, R.E., and ChatGPT. The Bible in History & Christianity’s Search for God. Relevancy22 Blog Series, 2026.

Slater, R.E., and ChatGPT. An Ontology of Becoming – Being I (37). Relevancy22 Blog Series, 2026.

Slater, R.E., and ChatGPT. An Ontology of Becoming – Being II (38). Relevancy22 Blog Series, 2026.

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APPENDIX A

Can Nature Resist Becoming?

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Continuity, Collapse, and the Limits of Relational Participation

One of the deeper questions emerging from the Jonah essays concerns whether resistance to becoming exists solely within human consciousness, or whether forms of contraction, rigidity, and failed participation may also appear throughout nature itself.

This question requires careful philosophical framing.

For within Embodied Process Realism (EPR) and Open Relational Process Metaphysics (ORPM), becoming does not merely signify change alone. Rather, becoming refers more specifically to:

• relational participation,
• adaptive coherence,
• openness to reconfiguration,
• continuity-through-transformation,
• and the ongoing integration of reality across evolving conditions.

The question therefore becomes:

Can natural systems fail to sustain openness within relational becoming?

In many respects the answer appears to be yes - though differently than within conscious human resistance.

Nature itself does not morally rebel against becoming in the manner human beings may consciously or sub-consciously resist transformation, mercy, openness, or relational expansion. Human resistance often involves:

• fear,
• exclusion,
• domination,
• ideological rigidity,
• or defensive preservation of identity.

Natural systems instead appear to resist becoming structurally rather than morally.

For example:

• ecosystems may rigidify,
• biological species may over-specialize,
• stars may collapse,
• ecocivilizations may exhaust themselves,
• and cosmological structures may lose coherence across transformation.

In such cases continuity itself becomes increasingly incapable of adaptive participation within changing relational conditions.

The result is not necessarily evil in any theological sense.

Rather, it may represent:

• exhausted coherence,
• failed adaptation,
• relational contraction,
• or the inability of continuity to reorganize itself successfully within unfolding becoming.

This distinction remains important.

Human anti-becoming frequently involves conscious resistance to relational openness.

Nature, however, may display:

• fragility,
• entropy,
• instability,
• collapse,
• exhaustion,
• or structural limitation.

Thus both humanity and nature may experience forms of interrupted becoming, though differently.

This possibility carries important implications for ontology itself.

For if becoming may partially fail within localized systems, then openness cannot be treated as naïve inevitability. Transformation becomes fragile rather than guaranteed. Coherence requires continual participation rather than static preservation. Continuity itself may eventually rigidify against the very transformations necessary for sustaining further becoming.

This pattern appears repeatedly across:

• biology,
• ecology,
• human civilizations,
• human political systems,
• human religious institutions,
• and perhaps even cosmological structures themselves.

Jonah therefore becomes more than isolated prophetic narrative.

He becomes symbolic of a broader ontological tension visible throughout reality itself:

the struggle between continuity and adaptive openness.

The prophet resists transformation not because continuity is inherently evil, but because continuity fears dissolution once interruption destabilizes inherited coherence.

And perhaps nature itself exhibits analogous tensions wherever systems lose the capacity for relational reconfiguration under changing conditions.

Yet importantly, neither EPR nor ORPM interprets this as absolute metaphysical pessimism.

Reality itself remains unfinished.

Participation remains possible.

New coherences may emerge from collapse.

Transformation may still arise after interruption.

But becoming should not be imagined cheaply.

For openness carries risk.

Continuity may fail.

Coherence may fragment.

Systems may rigidify.

And participation within becoming may remain
uneven, fragile, painful, and incomplete across every scale of reality.

Perhaps this is one of the deepest disclosures emerging not only through Jonah, but through existence itself:

that reality continually presses toward relational participation, while localized continuities repeatedly struggle to remain open enough to participate within becoming once again.

This is every parent's struggle, every community's waking labor, every nation's caution - that becoming becomes a responsive "yes" to the refusing "no"...

And that the patient work of cultivating ecosystems - personal, social, political, ecological, spiritual, and civilizational  toward healthier forms of relational integration may itself participate in reality’s deeper evolutionary character.

For becoming does not emerge automatically.

It must often be nurtured.

Continuity must remain open enough to reorganize itself relationally rather than collapse inward toward fear, rigidity, domination, or exclusion. The labor of existence therefore becomes more than survival alone. It becomes the difficult cultivation of conditions capable of sustaining further participation within openness itself.

This is why healthy ecosystems matter.

Not merely biologically,

but ontologically.

For wherever relations remain adaptive, participatory, responsive, and capable of expressing and responding to reconfiguration, ontologic-becoming retains the possibility of responsive continued coherence across transformation.

And perhaps this is why rupture remains so consequential.

For interruption may either:

• harden continuity against becoming,
  or
• reopen continuity toward deeper participation within reality itself.

The difference is never guaranteed.

Yet wherever openness survives interruption, new forms of coherence may gradually emerge from what once appeared only fragmented, wounded, or lost.

Thus the struggle toward healthier integration is not separate from reality’s unfolding character.

It may be one of its deepest expressions.