Reflection
The conviction that environmental renewal and sustainability depend on spiritual awareness and an attitude of responsibility toward this earth forms a spiritual ecology. We become aware that God is manifested in creation and that we are not apart from God’s creation but part of it. “Spiritual ecology means reawakening our awareness of what is sacred in all of creation and knowing that only if we work together with the divine in all of its manifestations can we hope to redeem what we have desecrated and destroyed through our greed and arrogance. It means to reclaim the wisdom of our ancestors who knew the sacred interconnections of life and the divine forces within it.” (Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee).
Prayer
O God, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all;
Psalm 104:24
Action
Reflect on the sacred in creation and how creation is the primary revelation of God. Try to translate this into your daily choices and activities.
Suggested Reading
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Hebrews 11:3
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1:20
If we approach nature and the environment without…openness to awe and wonder, if we no longer speak the language of fraternity and beauty in our relationship with the world, our attitude will be that of masters, consumers, ruthless exploiters, unable to set limits on their immediate needs. By contrast, if we feel intimately united with all that exists, then sobriety and care will well up spontaneously.
Pope Francis, Laudato Si
Creation is the primary and most perfect revelation of the Divine.
Thomas Aquinas
The natural world is the larger sacred community to which we belong. To be alienated from this community is to become destitute in all that makes us human. To damage this community is to diminish our own existence.
Thomas Berry
There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.
Wendell Berry
To those of us who believe that all of life is sacred every crumb of bread and sip of wine is a Eucharist, a remembrance, a call to awareness of holiness right where we are.
Shauna Niequist
Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved.
Jane Goodall
Right now, we don’t have a very good relationship with creation.
Pope Francis
All the great religions have a place for awe, for ecstatic transport at the wonder and beauty of creation.
Richard Dawkins
God dwells in creation and is everywhere indivisibly present in all. God is transcendent above all even while present, immanent within all.
A. W. Tozer