Community of Creation
Having
grown up in central New York State, not far from the Adirondack Park, I
have always had a special place in my heart for the beauty of deciduous
forests. The green trees and shrubs, the rolling hills and glacial
valleys, the clear blue lakes and streams illustrate for me the truth of
Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetic vision, inspired as it was by the
Franciscan John Duns Scotus, that “the world is charged with the
grandeur of God.”
That a Franciscan friar is writing a column
about creation may seem like a bad joke or a tired cliché. What’s next?
My headshot replaced with a portrait in a birdbath?
But despite the apparent predictability of a
Franciscan’s sentimental attachment to creation, there is something
that touches me more deeply than the immediately recognizable beauty of
the earth. When I am awestruck at the sunset over an Adirondack lake or
turn the corner on a road that reveals a landscape that takes my breath
away, I reflect on the place that we humans have in this world. This is
in part because the landscape of upstate New York has shaped my
theological imagination as much as it has informed my aesthetic
preferences.
For a long time now theologians, pastoral
ministers and environmental activists alike have decried the ways we
have treated and continue to treat the earth. We are well aware of the
effects of our hubris, like global climate change and pollution. We know
that we have a responsibility to the earth and the rest of the created
order, and this has developed beyond older interpretations of Scripture
that justified a “dominion” approach to creation that advocated human
sovereignty over land and animal. We have come to recognize that we are
not “lords of the earth” but “stewards of creation.” But I have long
wondered if this “stewardship” response is sufficient or even if it is
correct.
I am not alone in my doubt about the popular
“stewardship” tropes used, admittedly with good intentions, to talk
about our relationship to the earth and the rest of its inhabitants. One
well-known critic of this paradigm is the theologian Elizabeth Johnson,
C.S.J. In Professor Johnson’s new book, Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love,
she calls for a renewed look at the biblical, theological and
scientific traditions that inform our understanding of ourselves and the
rest of creation. She, like the theologians Ilia Delio, O.S.F., and
John Haught, reads the work of Charles Darwin not as a threat to
Christianity but as a resource for theology and for our effort to engage
in faith seeking understanding. The result is a call for humanity to
remember what has too often been forgotten: we are part of creation, not
over and against it, not above or radically distant from it, as earlier
conceptions of an anthropocentric universe suggested.
It is this insight that unsettles the
standard stewardship approaches to creation. Rather than think about the
whole of nonhuman creation as being entrusted to us, which makes us
cosmic landlords or property managers for God, we should consider our
inherent kinship with the rest of creation. In addition to the account
of creation in the second chapter of the Book of Genesis, which reminds
human beings that we are ha-adamah (“from the earth”), we also
have extensive physiological evidence that supports Carl Sagan’s
assertion that “we are made of starstuff.” We share the same building
blocks as the rest of creation.
Yes, we are called to care for creation, but
that care does not arise from some extrinsic obligation. Rather, this
care should be grounded in our piety. The Latin pietas means duty
or care for one’s family, which stems from a deep relational
connection. The care we have for our children, parents and siblings
should model how we think about and “care for creation.” In this sense,
St. Francis of Assisi had it correct from the start. Each aspect of
creation is our brother and sister; we are part of the same family, the
same community of creation. In this sense, those who don’t live up to
their creational family obligation are not very pious at all.
When I hike through the Adirondacks and find
myself overwhelmed by the beauty of God’s creation, I am grateful to be
a part of this community. The rest of creation cares for you and me; it
is our duty to care for it as well. And that’s not just some romantic
birdbath talk; it is what it means to be part of this extended family.
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