MARCH

Week 2. Spiritual Practice

STEPPING LIGHTLY ON THE EARTH

Material and Tradition Elements for this Block. Excerpt of Sex, Economy, Freedom &Community, by Wendell Berry, 1992. "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world." Psalm 19:1-4 Objectives.
To help volunteers make the connection between faith and care of the environment. God has given us the charge to steward the creation and part of our responsibility as people of faith is to make good use of the world God has given us. To invite volunteers to consider their communities and life together in light of Gods call to shepherd the creation.

Background for Facilitator

From the beginning of Holy Scripture, land is central to the peoples relationship with God. God calls the creation good in Genesis and gives people a place to thrive and flourish. Unfortunately humanity could not live in Gods way, so Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden. Their banishment, however, is not the end of the story. In establishing covenants with Abraham and Noah, God promised land to them and their descendents, a land that would be full of milk and honey. Throughout Scripture, we read of the beauty of Gods creation, the many ways that the land testifies in praise of God, and the ways in which Gods love and mercy can best be illustrated by examples occurring in the natural world. As Paul writes in Romans 1, for since the creation of the world Gods invisible qualitiesGods eternal power and divine naturehave been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made Christians, like the rest of the worlds groups, have often struggled with the tension of how to use the resources that God has given us without abusing them. However we negotiate this problem, we know that God has given human beings responsibility for being good stewards of the good creation that God has entrusted to us. Despite the rhetoric of some, one cannot faithfully and intelligently read the Bible without coming to the conclusion that taking care of the environment is a significant part of being faithful to God, the creator of all good things. Many volunteers entered their year of service with keen understanding and passionate commitment to care of the creation and preservation of the environment. It is likely, however, that they are seeing and witnessing ways that care or lack of care of Gods creation can have disastrous effects on the communities in which they serve. They may have gotten to know families who struggle to pay the rising costs of heating their homes in the winter. They may live in neighborhoods that have served as dumping grounds for waste for decades. They may simply be struggling to make choices about how to be good

stewards of creation while living on a budget. Regardless of the details, the lessons of Gods good creation and the importance of respecting it and being good borrowers of the planet are very significant for us as individuals and communities of faith.

For this session, please plan to spend 50-65 minutes together. Materials You Will Need.
Journals Pens or pencils Excerpt of Sex, Economy, Freedom &Community, by Wendell Berry (included here)

Presentation of the Material. 15 min.

Allow the volunteers time to read an excerpt from Wendell Berrys essay, Christianity and the Survival of Creation from Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, pages 96-99. If we read the Bible, keeping in mind the desirability of those two survivals of Christianity and the Creation we are apt to discover several things about which modern Christian organizations have kept remarkably quiet or to which they have paid little attention. We will discover that we humans do not own the world or any part of it: The earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein. There is our human law, undeniably, the concept and right of land ownership. But this, I think, is merely an expedient to safeguard the mutual belonging of people and places without which there can be no lasting and conserving human communities. This right of human ownership is limited by mortality and by natural constraints on human attention and responsibility; it quickly becomes abusive when used to justify large accumulations of real estate, and perhaps for that reason such accumulations are forbidden in the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus. In biblical terms, the landowner is the guest and steward of God: The land is mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with me. We will discover that God made not only the parts of Creation that we humans understand and approve but all of it: All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. And so we must credit God with the making of biting and stinging instincts, poisonous serpents, weeds, poisonous weeds, dangerous beasts, and disease-causing micro-organisms. That we may disapprove of these things does not mean that God is in error or that He ceded some of the work of Creation to Satan; it means that we are deficient in wholeness, harmony and understanding that is, we are, fallen. We will discover that God found the world, as He made it, to be good, that He made it for His pleasure, and that He continues to love it and find it worthy, despite its reduction and corruption by us. People who quote John 3:16 as an easy formula for getting to Heaven neglect to see the great difficulty implied in the statement that the advent of Christ was made possible by Gods love for the world not Gods love for Heaven or for the world as it might be but for the world as it was and is. Belief in Christ is thus dependent on prior belief in the inherent goodness the lovability of the world. We will discover that the Creation is not in any sense independent of the Creator, the result of a primal creative act long ago and done with, but is the continuous, constant participation of all creatures in the being of God. Elihu said to Job that if God gather unto himself his spirit and his breath; all flesh shall perish together. And Psalm 104 says, Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created. Creation is

thus Gods presence in creatures. The Greek Orthodox theologian Philip Sherrard has written that Creation is nothing less than the manifestation of Gods hidden Being. This means that we and all other creatures live by a sanctity that is inexpressibly intimate, for to every creature, the gift of life is a portion of the breath and spirit of God. As the poet George Herbert put it: Thou art in small things great, not small in anyFor thou are infinite in one and all. We will discover that for these reasons our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or stupid economics, or a betrayal of family of responsibility, it is the most horrid blasphemy. It is flinging Gods gifts into His face, as if they were of no worth beyond that assigned to them by our destruction of them. To Dante, despising Nature and her goodness was a violence against God. We have no entitlement from the Bible to exterminate or permanently destroy or hold in contempt anything on the earth or in the heavens above or in the waters beneath it. We have the right to use the gifts of nature but not to ruin or waste them. We have the right to use what we need but no more, which is why the Bible forbids usery and great accumulations of property. The usurer, Dante said, condemns Naturefor he puts his hope elsewhere. William Blake was biblically correct, then, when he said that everything that lives is holy. And Blakes great commentator Kathleen Raine was correct both biblically and historically when she said that the sense of the holiness of life is the human norm. The Bible leaves no doubt at all about the sanctity of the act of world-making, or of the world that was made, or of creaturely or bodily life in this world. We are holy creatures living among other holy creatures in a world that is holy.

Gut Response. 2-5 min.

Ask the group: Do you agree with Berry that destruction of the planet rises to the level of blasphemy against God? Why or why not? How might you live together in a way that affirms that we believe the world in which we live is holy? How can caring for creation connect us more deeply to God?

Engagement of the Material: Group Activity. 20 min.

Ask the group to spend about five minutes reflecting on the land/terrain where they live, volunteer, work and interact with the broader community. If you have time and if it is feasible, you might invite them to be outside for this activity, or even take a walk together. As they reflect, invite them to think about the characteristics of their surroundings, what are the significant buildings and landmarks, are their many cars or street signs, is the area flat or hilly, how does it smell, how does it sound to newcomers. After spending time reflecting on their own, invite them to share their insights and discuss with one another how their surroundings have impacted them in their volunteer year. As they finish, the group is invited to pray for the community and people with whom they share life and resources.

Pillar Signature: Journaling. 5-10 min.

Each Spiritual Practice block will include a time for journaling. Some of these practices lend themselves naturally to journaling, and others are more active or focused on other sorts of activities. For this weeks spiritual practice block, invite volunteers to journal about their immediate surroundings, the terrain, the buildings, the sounds, etc. where they work and live. Invite them to reflect on how care for creation can be understood as a spiritual practice. How might caring for the earth connect us more to God and others?

The Tradition. 2-5 min.

Christians affirm, without hesitation, that the world in which we live was made by God and was indeed good, as is declared in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible. God created human beings, male and female, in Gods image and entrusted them to care for the earth. Unfortunately, our record of taking care of the beautiful gift that God has given us is mixed. Regardless of our past record, many Christians are once again returning to understand and consider how to live up to our responsibilities and care for Gods creation. People are doing this in many different ways. Some Christians are ditching SUVs and other gas-guzzlers in favor of transportation that is less harsh on the environment. Some churches are forming creation care groups that look for ways to be more faithful while others are sacrificing comforts in order to better protect the earth. Whatever the practice, faith in the God of the Bible leads us to live in ways that respect and show reverence for the world around us.

Synthesis. 5-10 min.

With so many justice issues we face trying to live faithfully in the world, it is often hardest to change our own practices that abuse Gods creation. Ask the group to consider ways in which they could become better caretakers of Gods creation. You might try to engage the group on what practices would be easy to implement and which ones would be difficult.

Prayer.
Creator God, We give you thanks for the many gifts that you give us, particularly the gift of the world that you have placed in our care. Each and every day we see glimpses of you within the world in which we live. Remind us that everything we have comes from you and give us the courage to live in reverent care of your good creation. Help us love and serve others as much as you love us. Amen.

** additional resource materials/web links** Nature as Spiritual Practice and A Field Guide to Nature as Spiritual Practice by Steven Chase. Eerdmans Publishing, 2011.