In a column I wrote that both Pope Benedict XVI and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew have compellingly spoken and written about the need to protect God’s creation. The Holy Father said that protecting creation at its core goes beyond protecting the environment and finding alternative sources of energy. Rather, it requires a new life style which holds together “the two dimensions – Creation and Redemption, earthly life and eternal life, responsibility for creation and responsibility for others and for the future.”
Benedict’s wisdom, I wrote, makes absolutely no sense in a world where God is missing. By extension, it also makes no sense where the individual – even the corporation – is king (or queen), or where reality is the construction of the individual. In such a world one person’s trash is another person’s treasure; where a living, developing human embryo is an inconvenient mass of cells to one woman and “my beautiful baby” to another woman.
In some cases we are losing the language needed to describe God’s creation. A recent story over the news services revealed that the publishers of the Oxford Junior Dictionary have elected to delete “dandelion” and “beaver.” Among the added words are “mp3” and “blog.” We have become so disconnected from reality, from one another, from creation, and from God, we need to reconnect ourselves with the reality of God’s creation.
NBC Nightly New’ Brian Williams recently interviewed cellist Yo Yo Ma. During the conversation Mr. Ma described his cello “Petunia.” Handcrafted in Venice in the year 1733, Petunia is made with the wood of spruce and maple. The varnish is from the acacia trees of Arabia, curry powder from India, and the red dragon’s blood plant from Malaysia. The ebony on the cello is from Africa and the wood used to make the bow from Brazil. Had he been queried further, I am sure that Mr. Ma would have been able to discuss the significance of the choices of wood for the different parts of the cello. Mr. Ma knows Petunia, where she was artfully constructed, where the raw materials going into making her are from, and how each and every material contributes to her beautiful sound.
If we are to begin to heed the words of Benedict and Bartholomew, we similarly need to begin to connect the dots for ourselves and our children with respect to God’s creation. God created the earth, the heavens, the amoeba, the kingfisher, even the despised rat. When the floods came in the time of Noah, God told Noah to take two of each species with him and his family on the ark. God’s command to Noah was not to save only himself and his family. No, it was to save all of his creation. So we are really called to be stewards of God’s creation. In the vesper service of the Eastern Church we are reminded of this when we chant Psalm 103 praising God’s creation: “How great are your works, O Lord! In wisdom you have wrought them all: the earth is filled with your creatures.”
Our challenge in today’s highly digitized and virtual world is to become aware of God’s creation all around us and share that with our children and grandchildren. That does not require a visit to the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone. It does require that we take time from our daily routine, step away from the computer and the television, get out of the house and out of the car, and observe God’s creation in our backyards, our local parklands and farms. Some things are easier to notice than others; the changing seasons are an example. Take at least one aspect of creation and see how they change with the seasons – the night sky, the birds, the insects, the flowers in bloom. Plant a garden and watch life unfold before your eyes. Let your child or grandchild pluck a tomato off the vine and blueberries off the bush. What makes my part of the world – my backyard, the nearest nature preserve, and the nearest farm – unique? As we stay in our unique place in the world what seems to be changing from year to year? There is also the hidden world of the mother’s womb – help your child or grandchild understand what is going on inside that world where a new life develops.
Farmer and poet Wendell Berry’s Sabbath poems (Given) drew their inspiration from Berry’s Sunday walks on his farmstead. The Sabbath poems convey Berry’s awe for life and God’s creative hand as well as his knowledge of and his careful stewardship and husbandry of his land. He knows the land farmed by himself, earlier by his father, and earlier yet by his grandfather like he knows the palm of his hand. He knows the blossoming of new life in the springtime and the promise of resurrection. It is no wonder that he knows “a ’fetus’ is a human child.” The more clearly we see and understand creation and God’s creative hand, the more clearly we revere life in all of its forms and the more readily we will be able to heed the words of Benedict and Bartholomew.
Thomas P. Shubeck Ph.D. is a psychologist in family practice.
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