Sanctuary
Inspired by an hour plus at Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary
A place peaceful and beautiful
scenes so idyllic and right
you feel it in your stomach
it starts to satisfy, soothe and excite your soul
A place where quiet and slow come naturally, fit with ease
it's difficult to hurry even if you want to
A look at your watch is a pleasant surprise at how little time has passed
but finally, it's hard to go
Banishment from Eden must have been an awful thing
God beyond all names, be sanctuary for my soul
so my departure will not mean
I am banished from Eden again
-Monica, 5/8/08
Link to Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary
Showing posts with label Nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nature. Show all posts
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Green Churches - Green Theology
Did you see the article in Saturday's Star Tribune about the role of churches & other faith groups in environmental issues? It had a variety of interesting points. (Sorry I don't have the link handy.)
Several were along the lines of churches bringing a somewhat unique sense of moral responsiblity to the issue. There was also the idea that the belief that God created the Earth serves as motivation for us to care for the earth...respect the Creator by respecting the creation...
Its not that I outrightly disagree with these points. But they don't resonate very much with me.
Moral responsibility for the environment can come from many sources, religious faith oriented or otherwise.
My own faith oriented perspective on environmental issues includes an important moral aspect. But framing it as primarily a moral issue seems to miss the crux of how I understand it and what I find compelling. It see it as primarily a spiritual issue out of which naturally grows a moral issue.
Moral issues are too often perceived as externally imposed obligations. Prodding with a religious should is a poor way to motivate true transformation.
Caring for the environment is a matter of living in sync with God, with the earth, the rest of humanity and our own selves. Christianity supports that best not primarily by focusing on moral responsiblity, but by going deeper to focus on nurturing and developing our ability to be in tune and in sync with these relationships in both our awareness and actions.
As far as caring for the creation out of respect for the creator, it makes me think about how I care for a quilt my grandmother made or objects I've inherited from my mother-in-law. I care for them out of respect for these people and the place they have in my life. My care for creation has a lot to do with my relationship with God. But I dont' have the same sense about caring for the earth as I do about caring for my grandmother's quilt. On second thought maybe I do. But its not the part of the sense that this individual made this therefore I take care of it. It's the sense that these things are a tangible representation of who these people are, who I am, how we fit together and how we all fit into the larger pictures of life and its meanings.
Maybe that's what the Christian idea of caring for the creation as an act of respect for the creator is all about. But I tend to hear the typical Christian representations of the issue with a lot more of an external and overly personified orientation than works well for me. My perception of God has become less personified over time and I see the creation story as more metaphoric than literal. I still hear a lot of the stories and statements of Christianity in the highly personified & highly literal ways I first learned them. Sometimes that gets in the way for me. I don't think I'm alone.
In the context of environmental issues & Christianity, how can we avoid letting the limitations of particular stories & metaphors, or the ways we've heard them in the past, become the limits of our definitions of our spiritual relationships? How can we engage our traditions in ways that maximize their abilitiy to work as intended, as tools to engage spiritual relationships?
Several were along the lines of churches bringing a somewhat unique sense of moral responsiblity to the issue. There was also the idea that the belief that God created the Earth serves as motivation for us to care for the earth...respect the Creator by respecting the creation...
Its not that I outrightly disagree with these points. But they don't resonate very much with me.
Moral responsibility for the environment can come from many sources, religious faith oriented or otherwise.
My own faith oriented perspective on environmental issues includes an important moral aspect. But framing it as primarily a moral issue seems to miss the crux of how I understand it and what I find compelling. It see it as primarily a spiritual issue out of which naturally grows a moral issue.
Moral issues are too often perceived as externally imposed obligations. Prodding with a religious should is a poor way to motivate true transformation.
Caring for the environment is a matter of living in sync with God, with the earth, the rest of humanity and our own selves. Christianity supports that best not primarily by focusing on moral responsiblity, but by going deeper to focus on nurturing and developing our ability to be in tune and in sync with these relationships in both our awareness and actions.
As far as caring for the creation out of respect for the creator, it makes me think about how I care for a quilt my grandmother made or objects I've inherited from my mother-in-law. I care for them out of respect for these people and the place they have in my life. My care for creation has a lot to do with my relationship with God. But I dont' have the same sense about caring for the earth as I do about caring for my grandmother's quilt. On second thought maybe I do. But its not the part of the sense that this individual made this therefore I take care of it. It's the sense that these things are a tangible representation of who these people are, who I am, how we fit together and how we all fit into the larger pictures of life and its meanings.
Maybe that's what the Christian idea of caring for the creation as an act of respect for the creator is all about. But I tend to hear the typical Christian representations of the issue with a lot more of an external and overly personified orientation than works well for me. My perception of God has become less personified over time and I see the creation story as more metaphoric than literal. I still hear a lot of the stories and statements of Christianity in the highly personified & highly literal ways I first learned them. Sometimes that gets in the way for me. I don't think I'm alone.
In the context of environmental issues & Christianity, how can we avoid letting the limitations of particular stories & metaphors, or the ways we've heard them in the past, become the limits of our definitions of our spiritual relationships? How can we engage our traditions in ways that maximize their abilitiy to work as intended, as tools to engage spiritual relationships?
Monday, January 14, 2008
The City - Cut Off From the Land
Cain laments that he will be cut off from the land and cut off from God.
I have to wonder again about what the text means. What is "the land"? A certain part of land? An area of land in which to root oneself? The land of the earth itself?
To my ears, being cut off from the land, and eventually ending up in a city, as Cain did, makes me think of the differences in my relationship with the land and nature associated with my rural farm upbringing and my current city life.
In the city I'm not sure where to go to see the sunset on the horizon. City light obscures the stars. I dare to go out in blizzards and drive around with tornadoes a few miles away. Rain determines whether or not a put on a jacket, not when I go to work in a field or whether or not there is a crop.
In the city my perception of location and how to get from point A to point B is not shaped by trees, rocks and animal paths as it might have been in older times or more remote places than I have lived. Neither is it framed by the gravel mile roads of the rural area that is still partly home to me. Rather it closes in, proscribed block by block by concrete that moves my feet & heart that much farther from the earth.
In spite of the strengths of the city that I value, I'm always torn. Maybe someday I'll return to the country. Why knows. I don't like being this removed from the land. It's not just an aesthetic or recreational issue. It's a spiritual issue. Earth, air and water are old and basic to our being, both physically and otherwise. Consider their role in our creation story. Our natural selves (in a good sense of the word) resonate with them. Connecting with them connects us to something old, deep, vast and basic. The freeways and sidewalks, 35W, 4th Ave S, new streets in the outer suburbs, are new and short lived. Their origins, in this part of the world, connect us back a few years to a century or so. That's more meaningful and worthwhile than we often realize. But it isn't the same. Could this be why Cain complained of being cut off from the land and being cut off from God almost in the same breath?
But there is the other side....evidence of hope in the text and experience of spiritual connections brought through the city. More on that in another post.
I have to wonder again about what the text means. What is "the land"? A certain part of land? An area of land in which to root oneself? The land of the earth itself?
To my ears, being cut off from the land, and eventually ending up in a city, as Cain did, makes me think of the differences in my relationship with the land and nature associated with my rural farm upbringing and my current city life.
In the city I'm not sure where to go to see the sunset on the horizon. City light obscures the stars. I dare to go out in blizzards and drive around with tornadoes a few miles away. Rain determines whether or not a put on a jacket, not when I go to work in a field or whether or not there is a crop.
In the city my perception of location and how to get from point A to point B is not shaped by trees, rocks and animal paths as it might have been in older times or more remote places than I have lived. Neither is it framed by the gravel mile roads of the rural area that is still partly home to me. Rather it closes in, proscribed block by block by concrete that moves my feet & heart that much farther from the earth.
In spite of the strengths of the city that I value, I'm always torn. Maybe someday I'll return to the country. Why knows. I don't like being this removed from the land. It's not just an aesthetic or recreational issue. It's a spiritual issue. Earth, air and water are old and basic to our being, both physically and otherwise. Consider their role in our creation story. Our natural selves (in a good sense of the word) resonate with them. Connecting with them connects us to something old, deep, vast and basic. The freeways and sidewalks, 35W, 4th Ave S, new streets in the outer suburbs, are new and short lived. Their origins, in this part of the world, connect us back a few years to a century or so. That's more meaningful and worthwhile than we often realize. But it isn't the same. Could this be why Cain complained of being cut off from the land and being cut off from God almost in the same breath?
But there is the other side....evidence of hope in the text and experience of spiritual connections brought through the city. More on that in another post.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Stars
The natural and the spiritual have a big overlap in my perspective.
Over the last few months I've been observing the stars more.
Part of what fascinates me is that they are simultaneously something so ancient and so much a part of our everyday world.
We take them for granted, and for most of us their details & patterns of visibility go on without our awareness. (We speak about the stars moving. But this just points all the more to our self-centeredness and limited of awareness of the context of our existence. The movement is really that of the earth on which we are riding.)
How much goes on around us of which we are unaware.
What an interesting contrast between us and people of times past. They may not have know that the earth was round or the shapes the continents take. Yet I'm sure many were much more knowledgeable about the patterns of the stars, and familiar with them, than most of us are.
What an interesting connection we have to people through countless ages as we look at stars that they also observed - specific individuals, and people in general.
Such thoughts increase my sense of connection to aspects of spirituality that extend beyond my own life, beyond our own times, beyond history that we know...to reaches that we have a limited and vague knowledge of, then beyond that to reaches I can not comprehend, about which I do not know.
And yet in the midst of that I remain grounded by the physical reality of the stars that I see and the tangible, definable information that I have and continue to learn about them.
What a wonderful combination!
Over the last few months I've been observing the stars more.
Part of what fascinates me is that they are simultaneously something so ancient and so much a part of our everyday world.
We take them for granted, and for most of us their details & patterns of visibility go on without our awareness. (We speak about the stars moving. But this just points all the more to our self-centeredness and limited of awareness of the context of our existence. The movement is really that of the earth on which we are riding.)
How much goes on around us of which we are unaware.
What an interesting contrast between us and people of times past. They may not have know that the earth was round or the shapes the continents take. Yet I'm sure many were much more knowledgeable about the patterns of the stars, and familiar with them, than most of us are.
What an interesting connection we have to people through countless ages as we look at stars that they also observed - specific individuals, and people in general.
Such thoughts increase my sense of connection to aspects of spirituality that extend beyond my own life, beyond our own times, beyond history that we know...to reaches that we have a limited and vague knowledge of, then beyond that to reaches I can not comprehend, about which I do not know.
And yet in the midst of that I remain grounded by the physical reality of the stars that I see and the tangible, definable information that I have and continue to learn about them.
What a wonderful combination!
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Snowstorm in the City
The grid of sidewalk that shapes our perception becomes a little less dominant,
nature a bit more evident,
as I walk a footworn path in the snow.
Why is this on my Grown-up in Church blog? Aside from not having anywhere better to put it...because of its relevance to my spirituality. In my persective, the Christian tradition has a mixed relationship and often a general weakness when it comes to nature. I see this as unfortunate because I find a spiritual resonance in nature that I see as compatable with my understanding of God and my Christian faith.
nature a bit more evident,
as I walk a footworn path in the snow.
Why is this on my Grown-up in Church blog? Aside from not having anywhere better to put it...because of its relevance to my spirituality. In my persective, the Christian tradition has a mixed relationship and often a general weakness when it comes to nature. I see this as unfortunate because I find a spiritual resonance in nature that I see as compatable with my understanding of God and my Christian faith.
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