Enjoying the wonders of nature does not require traveling to a remote wilderness. I had my mini-redwood grove, then I had windowsill gardens, and now I have a backyard native garden. Annie Dillard wrote the wonderful nature study Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. This book sounds like she lived in a wilderness. She didn’t. She lived a suburb. From her magical descriptions of nature she omitted a husband teaching college, rows of brick houses, and cars zipping by Tinker Creek. Dillard was consciously emulating Henry David Thoreau. Walden Pond sounds like a splendid wilderness for a hermit, but it was a short walk to the town of Concord, and rumor has it that Thoreau took his laundry from his cabin on Walden Pond to his mother’s house each week to get it cleaned. This is not fraud. This is paying attention to the blessings that persist in the face of our mowing and our paving. Thoreau said, “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” All we have to do is pay attention.
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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
October 28, 2018
Original Blessing
Psa. 148: Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host!
Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created.
He established them forever and ever;
he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.
Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!
Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!
Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!
Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and women alike, old and young together!
Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted;
his glory is above earth and heaven.
He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful,
for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the LORD!
You’ve probably heard of Original Sin. The doctrine of Original Sin was an invention of Augustine in the fourth century; it’s not in the Bible, of which Augustine apparently had a bad Latin translation. In the bible is Original Blessing: the blessing of an awe-inspiring universe, and a precious blue orb we call Earth, and a myriad of plants and animals on it so varied and complex we have yet to describe them all. Christian teachings have often neglected this blessing that is our natural world. Some Christian teachings even made the world, and our bodies, dangerous and sinful. We don’t take our creation stories as literal history or science, how the world came to be. They are our why, giving us meaning and purpose. Genesis 1 says that in the beginning, order came out of chaos, and complexity built up step by step, and at each step God saw that it was good.
Do you remember as a child, being out in nature and experiencing a sense of awe, of wonder, maybe even a sense of the sacred? I wonder where you were. I was in a redwood grove; Big Basin State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The ground was soft with a cushion of needles just a little paler than the reddish-brown earth. The sky peeked out far, far above, through a high ceiling of lacy arching branches. Crumbling trunks of fallen giants lay at intervals, silent witnesses to ancient times. I would sit inside a fairy ring where one of those giants had once stood, and I would be surrounded by its daughters, narrow and breathtakingly tall. Crested blue jays flashed by and staked out their territory with startling cries. The air was full of sweet earth and evergreen perfume. That redwood grove was my first cathedral.
I also found a little grove of evergreens in a park a mile from my house in suburban Sunnyvale, California. I would go and sit in that grove, and feel a part of something larger than myself; something that fed my soul. As a young adult I went back to that grove, and I was amused to discover how tiny it was; about fifteen feet on a side, surrounded by playgrounds and basketball courts. Maybe it was fractal: one piece of nature evokes the whole, at least to a child’s eyes.
This is our Season of Creation. By creation we mean God’s ongoing relationship with the world, in harmony with evolution. I’ve never been at a church with a Season of Creation before. Thank you! We have this Season of Creation to remind us that reverence and care for the natural world is an important part of our faith. Our well-being, our very survival, depends on our care for nature. If you are paying attention, you can get very anxious about the fate of our world. But let’s not go there today. Instead, as followers of Jesus, let’s reclaim a sense of wonder at the glory of nature, and respect for our interconnection with the natural world, and joy for the all blessings this world gives to us.
Ecology is doxology. Ecology is the recognition of the interconnection of the natural world. And doxology is a song of praise to God. Ecology is doxology. We don’t find much ecology in the New Testament. Praise for the wonders of nature was already in the psalms, and psalms were part of the daily life of Jesus and his first followers. Thanksgiving for the blessings of nature was part of Jewish prayers over meals, and Sabbath prayers and prayers for the marking of the seasons. Jesus took for granted an understanding of the rhythms of the natural world: he told parables of planting seeds and harvesting, scrambling over hills to watch over sheep, and the blessing of a spring of water bubbling life out of dry ground.
But then Christians got preoccupied with sin and salvation, heaven and hell, and many of them seem to have forgotten Original Blessing entirely. So we who feel the sacred calling to us through nature have often had to look elsewhere to put words to our feeling. Indigenous cultures around the world remind us that all life is sacred. In this part of the world we turn to Native American traditions to find words and images that honor the sacred in nature. Science tells us of the interconnectedness of all life, even subatomic particles. Old science told us the world was made of billiard balls bumping against each other; new science knows better. Process Theology gives us a way to understand how God can be in and through every creature and every rock and every star, everything, calling each moment forward in a dance of co-creation.
And we are invited to join this dance of co-creation, to enjoy and celebrate our connection with all that is. This does not sit well with a Protestant work ethic. It is not “productive” to meditate in a redwood grove, or to contemplate the patterns of clouds, or to cuddle a baby’s toes. Or is it? Our attending to the natural world can produce peace, awe, respect, a sense of belonging, and other fruits of the Spirit. Our reverence for nature will not produce money, or prestige, or the power that keeps empire afloat. To capitalism, nature is one more commodity to be bulldozed, packaged, sold, and discarded. But those who honor Original Blessing discover the power with, instead of power over. The power of connection. Creativity. Joy. And perhaps the wisdom and courage we will need to preserve the earth and its creatures, including ourselves.
Enjoying the wonders of nature does not require traveling to a remote wilderness. I had my mini-redwood grove, then I had windowsill gardens, and now I have a backyard native garden. Annie Dillard wrote the wonderful nature study Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. This book sounds like she lived in a wilderness. She didn’t. She lived a suburb.[i] From her magical descriptions of nature she omitted a husband teaching college, rows of brick houses, and cars zipping by Tinker Creek. Dillard was consciously emulating Henry David Thoreau. Walden Pond sounds like a splendid wilderness for a hermit, but it was a short walk to the town of Concord, and rumor has it that Thoreau took his laundry from his cabin on Walden Pond to his mother’s house each week to get it cleaned. This is not fraud. This is paying attention to the blessings that persist in the face of our mowing and our paving. Thoreau said, “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” All we have to do is pay attention.
I like to pay attention in the farmer’s market, Yesterday I celebrated the arrival of persimmons, beets with their tops, and Asian vegetables I can’t name. My reverence continues when I lay out veggies for a stew. I savor the onion, and the zucchinis, and the shiny eggplants, and the pungent bay leaf, blessing my kitchen, and my senses, and my family’s bodies. Words are not required, just the awareness that these gifts of the earth are God’s blessings for us.
Our lives are full of blessings. And other things. If we overlook the blessings, we will probably become dry and bitter and lonely. If we open our eyes to the wonders all around us, then we can join God’s dance of co-creation. As we become aware of our connection to the earth that sustains us, we will never be alone, and we can become willing to engage in the struggle to preserve the life that helped dance us into existence on this blue jewel we call home. Amen.
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