What is your favorite place in God’ creation? Do you love the mountains? The vast plains of the Dakotas? Or maybe you love ocean beaches or wind-swept deserts or trout filled lakes and streams? Maybe you find solace in the quiet of deep forests or the sound of birds in sun dappled meadows? Or maybe you prefer city parks or even your own back yard.
I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s hard to choose. There is a great diversity in the terrain of God’s creation… and I have found that everywhere I go, I see beauty of the land and water. As God declared in the very beginning, “It is good.” Yes. “It is so very good.”
God also created a great variety of creatures - fish and animals that swim like the dolphins, roar like a lion, run like a gazelle or fly like a bird or buzz like a mosquito. Although… I have to admit, I have some distinct preferences this time. I’d rather see a frog – than a snake. I’d rather hear a bird sing than listen to a mosquito buzz in my ear. But… God declared, “It is good.” And it is… it is ALL good.
And yet… while the creation may be “good” it is not tame nor safe. One day the lions may lay down with the lambs without the lambs becoming lunch… but that time is not yet.
When we were hiking in Montana’s Bob Marshal wilderness, my spouse and I took bear spray along for our own protection. And…while it might have been interesting to run into a bear, I was happy that the only bear prints we saw were ones that were imprinted in long since dried up mud on the path. But they were a reminder… the bears live there… we were just visiting. And when we came upon a dead young wildcat along the path… we did not tarry long to determine how it came to its demise. Instead, we picked up the pace and moved on. We didn’t want to be anywhere near that dead wild kitten if its’ mama came by.
The wilderness is awesome and rugged but also fragile. One day we gazed up into old growth forest trees that seemed to reach to the skies with trunks that I could not reach my hands around and the next day we walked through an area that had been burned by fire… thirty years ago. The trees were still laying like matchsticks strewn across the mountainside for miles and miles. There was no shade to be found. New growth was coming… but after thirty years it was just getting started.
This is God’s creation, this amazingly beautiful and yet wild and dangerous, rugged and fragile world. And God entrusted this beautiful world to us! God tasked us with the responsibility to care for it with the hope that we tend to it with love.
But…our response, quite honestly, has been mixed. We have made some mistakes. We have mistreated and abused the earth and the seas and the sky. There are huge islands of garbage floating in the ocean that are bigger than our state. We have polluted the earth and the sky. The smog is so bad in some places that people have difficulty breathing. Our lack of care for the earth, the water and the sky has caused so many problems for the world – and for us – with climate change among the most severe.
Clearly, we have made a lot of mistakes in caring for our world. And the scars show. But fortunately, there are some things that we have done right. We have been wise enough to set aside places to keep wild and other places to keep green. The parks and wild lands in our country and across the world are sanctuaries for plants and animals to thrive and they provide respite for us too.
There are also things that we can do personally to better care for our world. One church recognized that the relationship between people and creation needed tending. So, they began a ministry called “Holy Hikes.”1 Their goal is to help individuals re-establish what has been a broken relationship between creation, our Creator and our human community by simply inviting people to “take a step, perhaps even a hike.” With the understanding that “people will protect what they love,” they invite people to experience and thus rediscover the beauty of the earth and their place in it. And it is amazing what can happen. For when we stop to listen and to pay attention to the world that we live in, we are blessed. Being in nature can be a tonic to our souls.
My family discovered this a long time ago. There is a little creek near our house. When our children were little, we discovered the best parenting tool was to simply take a walk to the creek whenever one of us got a little fussy. Somehow … just hearing the bubbling brook...and maybe throwing pebbles and pooh sticks into the river… was just the healing salve that they – and we -- needed. I’m still walking to that creek – and every time I go there, I come back refreshed.
In the same way, for those of you who have animal friends that live with you, just caring for the pet may be the best medicine you have ever taken. And judging from the pictures that some of you sent – your care for your pet has paid off. Your animal friends are thriving.
We are not yet at the time of the beautiful kingdom when lions and lambs bed down together. But we can bless the animals that we live with, so that their lives will reflect the mutual relationship of love and care that we seek to have with all of creation.
In this mutual relationship of love and care, we and all of creation can join together in praise of God our creator. As the Psalmist wrote:
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy! Psalm 96:11-12 NRSV
Thanks be to God. Amen.
1Holy Hikes is established as a ministry of All Saints Episcopal Church in San Leandro, California. https://holyhikes.org/about/
Faith-Lilac Way Lutheran Church October 3, 2021 Pastor Pam Stalheim Lane