Experiencing The Divine In Creation

“We encounter God when we encounter creation; its beauty is an expression of the beauty of God.”
— James Profit, S.J.

The cloning of sheep, genetically engineered foods, nuclear energy, fish factory trawlers, bigger pig barns ... Father Kolvenback is correct in stating the ecological crisis arises out of faulty thinking and that the problem is more an ethical than a technical one. Technology has brought us many benefits and can continue to be of help in providing solutions. However, it has perhaps never been clearer ...

experiencing... cont’d

Trees, Forestry & The Responsiveness Of Creation

“And so we wait and work and pray for that day when heaven and earth meet and rivers freely flow and sorrow is no more and the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations.”
— Steven Bouma–Prediger

Descartes summed up the modern spirit well when he said that the goal of its devotees was to become nothing less than “the masters and possessors of nature.” Mastery and possession, however, require a silencing of the other. If we allow the other to speak to us, if we allow ourselves to hear the cry of the other, we can no longer continue our oppressive mastery. What is true in human affairs is also true in the context of the broader ecosphere.

Many of us first began instinctively to realize that there was something profoundly wrong with modernity's objectification of reality when we read Martin Buber's I and Thou...

For Buber, if something ceased to be an It, it thereby must have become a Thou. An I-Thou relationship with a tree!...

Will the forestry of the future emerge as large-scale agriculture on a smaller land base, as some foresters fear, or will it become something else? If will and grace be joined, the new forestry will be characterized by a relationship of listening and communion. Neither a naive preservationism nor a distanced objective management, it will be a stewardship of care that attends to trees in all their rich and nuanced diversity, variability, and individuality. Instead of reducing trees to economic objects that can be explained from a distance through quantifying measurements, the new forestry, rooted in "kindred subjectivity," will attempt to understand trees as eloquent others who have wisdom to impart.

responsiveness... cont’d

A Meditation On Earth

“We need to be continually renewed by our experience of the sacred within nature. Like all prayer, this should be a daily occurrence”
— James Profit, S.J.

“And God saw that it was good.” The first account of Creation (Gen. 1:1-2,3) refers to God's Creation as ‘good‘ or ‘very good‘ seven times. We know the greatness of God through Creation. We know it when we walk along a sandy beach as the sun goes down, when we plant in the springtime, and when the maple tree reveals its beauty in the fall. We rejoice with the Psalmist that “the Earth is full of [God's] creatures” (Psalm 104), and we know that the peace, harmony and love we experience from Creation are of God. In all of Creation, God our Creator is revealed to us.

Then why is God's Earth in crisis?

a meditation... cont’d

Water: Safe, Sacred Or For Sale?

“As water gets more polluted, the symbolism of purity and life becomes compromised.”
— James Profit, S.J.

Can water function as a religious symbol at all anymore? Can it speak to us of life? For symbols to work in facilitating a religious experience, they must be able to evoke an experience of the Divine; they must remain alive. Perhaps our compromised water can still speak to us in our complex industrialized society.

water, safe, sacred, or for sale... cont’d

An Ecological Commitment To The Poor

“The cry of the poor is the cry of the Earth!”
— Leonardo Boff

In their May Day message of 2001, the bishops of Quebec state, “The cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor are one.” They ask, “Are we still capable of hearing and listening to the cry of the poor? Are we attentive to the cry of the Earth itself?” When I first read the message from the bishops, I readily assented to the truth proclaimed and was grateful that the voice of the Earth was becoming the voice of the bishops. Yet, even though I have had a commitment to the poor and the Earth for a long time, I had not always really believed the point that the bishops made. In reality, I was more attentive to the voice of poor humans than the cry of the earth.

commitment... cont’d

We Live In A Broken World

“We live in a broken world where men and women are in need of integral healing, the power for which comes ultimately from God...”
— 34th General Congregation, Decree 6

Ecological equilibrium and a sustainable, equitable use of the world's resources are important elements of justice towards all the communities in our present “global village"; they are also matters of justice towards future generations who will inherit whatever we leave them.

Therefore, “we need to promote attitudes and policies which will create responsible relationships to the environment of our shared world, of which we are only the stewards.”

a broken world... cont’d

Spiritual Exercises & Ecology

“To say that the natural world is a ‘subject’ is to imply that Creation has a dynamic, personal, relational character, an intrinsic worth independent of any unitarian value it might have for humans. We are beings that affect others and are in turn influenced by others.”
— James Profit, S.J.

The image of our planet from space evokes a profound sense of awe and respect. We have similar emotions when we take a moment to notice the birth of kittens, or watch ants of a colony carrying food to their hill. There is a deepening contemplative experience emerging from the Earth. Yet, an ecological crisis looms over the planet, indicative of humanity's alienation from the Earth. Many are seemingly paralyzed by the gravity of the problem. The Spiritual Exercises, first formulated by Ignatius in another time of crisis, can further our contemplative experience of Creation while addressing the underlying causes of the ecological crisis, and in so doing, enable humans to act in a hope-filled, healing way.

spiritual exercises & ecology... cont’d