Seeing Creation

Do you need an attitude adjustment? Sometimes I hear people tell others that they do. This implies that the attitude the other person is displaying is not appropriate and perhaps even harmful. I suspect we all find ourselves in this position at one time or another.  Our attitudes are certainly not always what they should be and therefore need adjusting periodically.  One area where a lot of people need an attitude adjustment these days concerns the care of the earth. For reasons I cannot fully comprehend they believe the earth and its resources are theirs to do with as they please. The practice of Creation Care or environmental stewardship is foreign to such folks. I believe the attitude of people like this is both inappropriate and harmful.  It is also foreign to the teachings of the Bible.

In the first chapter of the Book of Colossians the apostle Paul notes that Christ is “the firstborn over all creation.” (v. 15)  This does not mean that Christ was the first thing created. Rather the term “firstborn” was understood as a title of honor and here indicates Christ is supreme over Creation. Paul goes on to say “by him all things were created.” (v. 16) For some people this is surprising. They do not associate the creation of the world with Christ but both Paul and the author of the Fourth Gospel (see John 1:3) declare that Christ was the agent of Creation. Paul, however, does not stop there. He goes on to say “all things were created by him and for him.”  It is this latter word that calls for a major attitude adjustment in many.  The world was created for and exists for Christ himself–not us.

If what Paul says is true then we cannot continue treating the earth any way we choose.  It does not belong to us nor are we the primary reason it exists.  It exists for Christ.  That means we must look at things differently. It means we must strive to treat the world and the environment in a way that will bring glory to Christ. For a number of years you saw everywhere the letters WWJD, which stood for “What would Jesus do?”  In light of Paul’s words it would not be a bad question for all of us to ask as we think about our relationship to the earth and the environmental issues we face today. Once again, if the earth was created for Christ then what we want to do with it isn’t the primary issue; it is what Christ wants. Discerning what exactly that would be might not always be easy but it should definitely be our major concern.  If it is not, then it is definitely time for an attitude adjustment!

–Chuck

(I took the three images shown here during a visit to Cuyahoga Valley National Park last month.)

Today is Mother’s Day. I kind of have mixed emotions about the whole idea of Mother’s Day. For some it is a wonderful day, for others it is a sad time. Still, I am glad for the opportunity it gives me to express my love and gratitude to my mother. I truly was blessed with a great mother and she deserves all the love and appreciation I can give her today and every other day.

The Bible repeatedly tells us to “honor your father and mother.”  This admonition even appears in the Ten Commandments.  (See Exodus 20:12)  Apparently God believes it is very important that respect be shown to one’s parents.  In the New Testament it is pointed out that this is the only Commandmant that has a promise attached to it.  The promise is “Then everything will be well with you, and you will have a long life on the earth.” (See Ephesians 6:2-3)  My suspicion is that this promise is not fulfilled automatically. Rather, if we have godly parents and show respect for them by listening to them and doing what they say, we will reap many benefits throughout our life.  This will likely cause us to live longer.  In other words, it pays to show one’s parents honor and respect.  That makes sense to me.

On this particular Mother’s Day I find myself wondering if there is not another mother that deserves honoring–Mother Earth.  Rob and I write regularly about the importance of caring for the earth and note that there are divine imperatives for doing so.  To many of us the Scriptures are clear on this.  Unfortunately, not all agree.  In recent days both a politician and a prominent minister have argued that we need not worry about the environment because Jesus is coming back soon.  The minister said that’s why he drove a SUV and joked that a man who drives a minivan is a mini-man.  Apparently some actually believe that since Jesus is coming back soon (something every generation since the apostle Paul has believed) there’s no need to worry about things like polluted water and air.

It would seem that Mother Earth deserves more respect than that. Even more so, the God who created the earth deserves to have His handiwork honored and respected more.  It is, after all, His gift to us.  The earth is remarkable in so many different ways.  It is designed to sustain life but if mistreated it can lead to death instead.  Perhaps one reason God calls on us to care for the earth is so that we might all live healthy lives.  And like God’s commandment to honor our parents, it would seem obeying the command to “tend the garden” produces many benefits for both us and others.  Long life and environmental care go hand in hand.  To me this is secondary to the revelation of God through Creation but obviously still very important.  If we really want to affirm the importance, or even sanctity, of life then the earth must be honored and respected.  By failing to honor the earth we fail to love both God and humankind. 

On this Mother’s Day I hope we will strive not only to honor our mothers but also Mother Earth. Showing them our love and respect is not only the right thing to do, it is the smart thing.  In both instances they and we reap benefits from our actions.  That sounds like a win-win situation to me.

–Chuck

(I took the images shown above on a trip with Rob to northern California a couple of years ago.)

Recently my wife and I went to see the movie about Jackie Robinson, 42. What an amazing story of courage by both Robinson and Branch Rickey! But even more, it gave a feeling for a time and its challenges that made a part of history come alive.

So what does this have to do with nature and photography and our connection to God? 42 made me think a bit. Society had treated blacks pretty poorly, and Robinson and Rickey faced some serious challenges. There were “welcome” people (white) and “unwelcome” people (blacks). Unwelcome people did not matter and could be treated badly without consequence. Obviously that has changed quite dramatically from Robinson’s day.

That definitely translates to nature. How often do you hear people talking about nature in terms of welcome and wanted, such as a furry or feathered animal, and unwelcome and unwanted, such as lizards or insects? Or people absolutely love places like the Great Smoky Mountains or Yosemite, but treat the small local marsh as an inconvenience.

We may have improved our treatment of our fellow man, but a lot of folks have not improved society’s treatment of nature when it is not furry, feathered or a national park. In fact, those “outcasts” of nature are often neglected and treated very poorly indeed.

I don’t remember Genesis saying that God created the earth and then separated the animals into good and bad according to man’s standards or natural places into wanted and unwanted. In fact, the Bible is very specific:

“God called the dry ground land, and the gathered waters He called seas. And God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:10.

“God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems … and every winged bird … And God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:21.

“God made the wild animals according to their kinds…and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:25.

In Matthew 25:40, Jesus says, “… whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Obviously, Jesus is talking about how we treat our fellow people, but given how important God’s creation is, that statement could easily apply to how we treat the “least” of nature, especially since it is us that is passing judgement on what is “least”, not God.

Sometimes you will hear people say, “Well, I don’t understand the purpose of (some animal)” – a rather condescending statement toward God. Did God ask for our blessing on His creation? Genesis says he blessed creation before he created man.

We all struggle at times with our own importance rather than putting God first. And if we really want to put God first, I believe it starts by respecting His creation, and simply accepting that life on earth is important regardless if we “get it” or not. How can we possibly understand everything that God understands? If someone started destroying “lesser” works of art by someone like Picasso because they did not “get that work”, they would be arrested and put in jail. Is God less than Picasso with his creative work? I don’t believe that.

The first photo is from Yosemite National Park, the second a small marsh in Torrance, California. The hummingbird is from Costa Rica and the chuckwalla lizard is from Joshua Tree National Park.

– Rob

For centuries there has been a list of sins known as the Seven Deadly Sins.  There is certainly a sense in which all sin is “deadly” but the church has historically recognized some sins to be especially deadly.  One of the Seven Deadly Sins is greed.  You hear a lot about greed these days.  Many people feel that our country’s current economic crisis has greed at its roots.  Greed, however, has been a problem for humans ever since the beginning.  The Bible warns of its dangers repeatedly.

Basically, greed is the selfish desire for more than one actually needs.  We probably think foremost of money when it comes to greed but there are many other areas where greed raises its ugly head.  Recently I came across some insightful words that reminded me of the role greed has played in the environmental crisis.  In his classic work, The Nature and Destiny of Man, theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “Man’s sense of dependence upon nature and his reverent gratitude toward the miracle of nature’s perennial abundance is destroyed by his arrogant sense of independence and his greedy effort to overcome the insecurity of nature’s rhythms and seasons by garnering her stores with excessive zeal and beyond natural requirements.  Greed is in short the expression of man’s inordinate ambition to hide his insecurity in nature.”

Human greed is revealed in our hoarding and overusing nature’s resources.  The result is that we now find ourselves in a precarious situation.  We are quickly learning that there is no endless supply of natural resources.  Much of our energy usage comes from nonrenewal forms of energy.  We are also learning more and more that there is a price to be paid for the way we have garnered nature’s “stores with excessive zeal.”   Greed truly does come with a high price tag.  When you consider how greed has led rich nations to hoard natural resources, which has in turn caused strife in poorer nations who struggle to survive, that price tag gets even higher.

It is imperative that we all root out the greed that is in our lives.  Greed is destructive and deadly on many different levels.  In Colossians 3 the apostle Paul told the church at Colossae to “put to death” such sins as greed, lust and anger.  He then went on to encourage them to clothe themselves “with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” (v. 12)  If we are going to avoid the “death” that greed brings to our lives and to the natural world, we must replace it with virtues like those Paul spoke of.  We have got to learn to live unselfishly, to practice love and self-control.  It won’t be easy, nor will it always be the popular thing to do, but it is by all means the right thing to do.

–Chuck

(I took the four images shown here at Jekyll Island on my recent trip to Georgia.)

I have been working on a big photo e-book project that I hope to complete by the end of the month, Reports from the Wild. It expresses some things that are very important to me related to how we see nature. A chapter on the green heron, “Swamp Hunter,” made me think a bit about how we see and glorify nature.

The green heron is a simple swamp hunter, ordinary, common. You can find them throughout most of the U.S.  It is no wildlife celebrity like penguins, polar bears or whales (these animals could care less about being celebrities — we make them so). The green heron doesn’t care much about being a celebrity, but celebrity animals do get attention in our sometimes celebrity crazed culture.  Everybody knows about penguins, polar bears and whales, yet far fewer people know a green heron, even though they are far more likely to see one.

Now I am not going to pretend that the Bible tells us anything about green herons or celebrity wildlife.  I do think, however, the following passage is worth thinking about and meditating how it might resonate with nature.

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ “On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.’” Matthew 9:10-13

Of course this is a passage about Christ’s nature to be inclusive and to challenge the self-righteous. Yet, Christ is consistent on this message, about paying attention to those that need attention, not just those who are popular or powerful.  That can make us think about nature.  Green herons are just one species of so many around us that need our attention, just because they exist, just because they are part of God’s creation. Yet, notice how often the media plays up the celebrity wildlife, the celebrity nature.  It sells.  And it often misses connecting us with all of God’s Creation.

It is not the big names in wildlife, such as those penguins and so forth, that need “a doctor”, or our attention, but the little things that make nature work so well every day. Penguins, polar bears and whales are important, but they can become so dominant in the media that people start thinking that is what nature is, celebrities.  The small stuff, like green herons, are then unknown, often unappreciated, and a little bit of nature dies around us. We become less connected to God’s Creation, to God’s second book.

– Rob

Some people seem to live way before their time.  For me a good example of this is John Woolman.  Woolman, a Quaker businessman and itinerate preacher, was born in New Jersey 1720 and died in 1772.  He was a deeply spiritual man whose faith caused him to speak out against slavery long before it was the popular thing to do.  He spoke strong words against injustice and oppression and was also an opponent of conscription.  While reading The Journal of John Woolman this past week I also discovered that he was an early advocate for the prevention of cruelty to animals.

In the opening chapter to his Journal Woolman writes: “…true religion consisted in an inward life, wherein the heart does love and reverence God the Creator, and learns to exercise true justice and goodness, not only toward all men, but also toward the brute creatures; that, as the mind was moved by an inward principle to love God as an invisible, incomprehensible Being, so, by the same principle, it was moved to love him in all his manifestations in the visible world; that, as by his breath the flame of life was kindled in all animal sensible creatures, to say we love God as unseen, and at the same time exercise cruelty toward the least creature moving by his life, or by life derived from him, was a contradiction in itself.”

Woolman felt that you could not separate how you treated animals from your faith or religion.  Others, throughout history, have concurred with him.  St. Francis of Assisi once said, “If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men.”  Another sensitive soul wrote: “I would give nothing for that man’s religion whose very dog and cat are not the better for it.” 

It should be obvious from reading the Scriptures that God cares greatly for all the creatures He made.  A number of biblical passages actually deal with the proper treatment of animals.   Most Christians are well aware that one of the Ten Commandments calls for a day of rest.  What they may not realize is that God said in the same Commandment that animals are to be given a break on the Sabbath as well.  (Exodus 20:8-10) Jesus indicated that God fed the birds and that not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him taking notice.  If God cares so much for the members of the animal kingdom shouldn’t we?  And does that not also mean that we, like John Woolman, should be advocates for the prevention of cruelty to animals?

There are a number of people in the church I serve who work very hard to prevent animal cruelty in our area.  They have been fighting to make our local animal shelter a “no-kill shelter.”  They also donate countless hours trying to find homes for abandoned dogs and cats so they will not be killed.  I am very thankful for the work of these individuals and feel that their work truly honors God.  Their work is a reflection of their faith.

Our pet dog, Sierra, came from an animal shelter.  She had been both abused and abandoned.  I do not understand how anyone can intentionally be cruel to an animal.  Such behavior is godless and evil.  Once again I have to ask, if God created these animals and loves them, aren’t we supposed to as well?  The great medical missionary and humanitarian, Albert Schweitzer, had much to say about the ethical treatment of animals.  He believed not only that they should be properly cared for, they should be prayed for as well.  Schweitzer composed this evening prayer for all living creatures: “O heavenly Father, protect and bless all things that have breath; guard them from all evil, and let them sleep in peace.”

How we treat animals truly does say a lot about our relationship with God.  I encourage you to treat your animals well and to do what you can to prevent animal cruelty.  I would also suggest you consider following Schweitzer’s example and pray for your pets and all living creatures.  It certainly seems like the right thing to do.

–Chuck

(I’ve chosen to illustrate today’s entry with images of our dog, Sierra.)