THE SACRED TREE
Created on September 3, 2004
Created on September 3, 2004
In
the religious traditions of many lands there is a sacred tree, a
central tree, a tree of life. In many religious rituals of the
past, trees in general were revered as carriers of the spirit of
life. Our ancestors tended to have much respect for trees.
Today, however, we have the Paul Bunyan mentality toward standing
timber: cut it down for lumber. All over the world, we are
destroying huge stands of forests that can never be replaced as they
were. Though we know that forests are needed to keep our lower
atmosphere in balance and that countless creatures depend on native
forest for their survival, we continue to destroy this great part of
our planet's life system. Trees have lost their sanctity.
Perhaps the tree can become a symbol of our turning back to a holy
reverence for the earth. Perhaps you can plant a special tree,
from seed or seedling, watch it grow and let it become a sign for all
that is sacred.
DOORWAY OF HOPE
Second Trine of the Moon, September 4, 2004
Hosea,
a prophet of ancient Israel, understood that the people had lost their
identity--they no longer understood the basic truth about their daily
sustenance. They believed bread and water came from governmental
and priestly powers that had no real power at all. Through the
prophet, God said to these people, “Therefore behold, I will be her
persuader. I will make her walk in the wilderness and speak to her
mind. From there I will give her vineyards and exchange the
valley of desolation for a doorway of hope.” Many people today
are like the ancient Israelites in that we do not seem to know where
our sustenance comes from. With eyes that see not beyond the
kitchen or grocery store, we are imprisoned within our urban worlds and
locked within channels of rapid highways, unable to discover the Grace
that has always sustained us in spite of our ignorance. The
wilderness waits. Our ancestors lived there and drew life from
that wilderness. We too, must return to the wilderness, the
doorway of hope, to know God and our own truest selves.
INTERIOR SILENCE
Created on September 5, 2004
Do
not be anxious about your life--what you shall eat and what you shall
drink. Nor what you shall wear on your body. Is not life
more than the food and body more than clothing? Look at the birds
of the air, for they do not plant nor harvest and they do not store
into bins. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
These are the words of Jesus. They are charming, we must admit. They remind us of basics we have been taking for granted, as though no one need be concerned about those things. Yet we worry about things that go beyond the basics to things we merely desire--we no longer know the difference between “what I want” and “what I need.” All this affects the way we view our natural environment. As we live on earth, we expect from it far more than daily bread. In the blind assumption that there are not limits to what they can have, today’s dominant populations are destroying the base from which all basic needs must come. Yet our heavenly Father provides for the humbler creatures, taught Jesus. Have we forgotten the ways in which Mother Nature feeds all her babies? It is time to stop being anxious and instead, cultivate an interior silence that allows us to be satisfied with what we have--to realize and celebrate God’s sustaining grace.
HOLY WISDOM
Last Quarter, September 6, 2004
There
is a character in the bible called Holy Wisdom--a female character who
appears in the Book of Proverbs and continues to play a role in both
Jewish and Christian tradition. In Proverbs 8 she is depicted as
God’s partner in creation and as particularly delighted with the
appearance of humans. In the Christian tradition, she came to be
identified with the Virgin Mother of Christ. It seems clear from
early artistic depictions that Mary was also taken to be a
personification of Mother Earth. Somehow Mary and Wisdom and
Earth all merge into one as the female power that was joined with the
heavenly power to produce earth’s Savior. All this was in the
realm of intuition rather than logic. It reminds us that earth
has a kind of wisdom that is innate. The Creator built into the
whole planetary system a program of behavior that seems to guarantee
its survival, thus it is profoundly true to say that the earth is wise
and her wisdom sustains us all.
THE BALANCE
Created on September 7, 2004
Chinese
sages of long ago noticed the perfect balance of nature, called it the
principle of the Yin and the Yang and originated a symbol for it that
is known quite generally around the world. The ancient Jewish
sage whose words are in the Book of Ecclesiastes made some observations
about that balance as well. He writes:
The Jewish sage saw this balance of all things should be as much within human behavior as it is in the pattern of all else that is. This simple and powerful fact is an important lesson. It is when we fail to sense this balance that we throw ourselves and much else out of balance. The balance in life is essential. Without it, there is no wholeness, no shalom.
For everything there is a season,
a time for every delight beneath the sun;
a time for birthing and a time for dying,
a time for planting and for plucking what’s planted,
a time for killing and a time for healing,
a time for weeping and a time for laughing
a time for grieving and a time for dancing...
a time for war and a time for peace.
a time for every delight beneath the sun;
a time for birthing and a time for dying,
a time for planting and for plucking what’s planted,
a time for killing and a time for healing,
a time for weeping and a time for laughing
a time for grieving and a time for dancing...
a time for war and a time for peace.
The Jewish sage saw this balance of all things should be as much within human behavior as it is in the pattern of all else that is. This simple and powerful fact is an important lesson. It is when we fail to sense this balance that we throw ourselves and much else out of balance. The balance in life is essential. Without it, there is no wholeness, no shalom.
APPRECIATION
Created on September 8, 2004
A
great religious philosopher of the twentieth century, a man named
Abraham Hershel, once wrote these lines: “If the human race perishes it
will not be for a lack of information but for a lack of
appreciation.” As we ponder our human ways in relation to the
natural environment that produced us, it seems easy to see the truth of
his statement and take it as a prophetic prediction. Where is the
place for the human in this world of many wonders? Most surely
and most important of all, we are creatures of the Creator along with
the rest of creation. And religiously we should be
appreciators--not merely exploiters and beneficiaries at the expense of
all other created species. We should, to be sure, be stewards,
responsible for the welfare of all. Appreciation, along
with the fear of the Lord, is the beginning of wisdom.
MYSTERY
Created on September 9, 2004
The Bible’s
legendary man of misfortune, Job, pleads with God for an explanation of
the unjust suffering he has endured. His counselors offer
explanations that do not ring true and so we and Job are left with no
explanation. His suffering is a mystery. In response to
this dilemma a divine wind whirls in and questions Job: “Where were you
when I laid the earth’s foundations? Who set its foundation stone when
morning stars sang together and the godly children shouted for
joy?” The poetry of the whirlwind chapters (38-39), is so
eloquent these chapters deserve a full reading. The lines speak
of such mysteries as the sunrise, the surges of the seas, light and
darkness, hail and snow, rain and dew and ice. It goes on to
speak of the grand patterns of stars in the heavens and the clouds that
cover earth from time to time as well as the mysteries of the animal
kingdom. All these wonders of nature, which God created, are well
beyond humanity’s comprehension. As a result of this
conversation, Job ultimately surrenders to the mystery--to realize that
the answers are beyond him and that he must trust what goes beyond his
understanding. We too, must live by faith--to let God rule and to
trust God’s overall wisdom.
BACK TO THE GARDEN
Created on September 10, 2004
In
the story of how God formed Adam from the soil of the earth, Adam's job
was the serve the earth. Translators have avoided the implication
of the word "to serve" by rendering it with such phrases as "to till
the soil" yet the Hebrew word used there is the same as the base for
the word "slave" or "servant." We modern generations have
preferred to think of the lines from the opening chapter to Genesis
that speak of subduing the earth (or so we construe it), of putting it
to our service. Yet in this second chapter of the same source is
the clear message of our duty to serve the mother who gives us the
substance of what we are. Most of today's American farmers admit
that their lands have deteriorated to where they cannot grow the
amounts of produce they desire without adding large amounts of
commercial fertilizer. They have forgotten that the earth's soil
is more than granules of dirt, that healthy soil includes innumerable
microbes and bacteria and small creatures that are essential to the
earth's daily regeneration. Chemical additives kill much of this
life. There are two kinds of farmers: the one who makes the soil
poorer and himself seemingly richer, and the one who loves the soil,
lives as a partner with the land and enjoys its wild fauna and flora as
much as the crops and domestic stock. Some say the quality of the
food produced by the earth-loving farmer is generally better for the
soul as well as the body. Yet it may be still more important that
the consumers learn to respect the land as much as the good farmer.
A MATTER OF OWNERSHIP
Created on September 11, 2004
One
of the simplest yet most profound statements of the Bible is what we
read in the opening lines of Psalm 24: "The earth and her fullness
belong to the Lord, the world and those who dwell in it, because he
founded it above the seas, created it over the currents." The
language is prescientific in that it presumes the land mass was
anchored into subterranean oceans, the prevailing notion of the ancient
world. Nevertheless, the religious truth of these lines keep them
important. By the logic of who makes a thing is its owner, the
psalmist declares that the whole world and every part of it belong to
the Maker . More truly than my ownership of the house I build or
the business I establish, the planet belongs to God--more truly because
I must borrow the raw materials for my makings from the One who make
all those materials, a fact which we can easily forget. Yet, we
are called to remember, for it still remains true, most importantly
true, that the earth and all its fullness are God's.