This question is for those who have no problem with the concept of creation. I put together the following paragraphs (some are borrowed) for possible submission to a church bulletin. If anyone has any CONSTRUCTIVE ideas on how it can be improved please let me know. I'm quite sure this will be controversial if it does get printed, but I felt the need to do it anyway. I would have used 'Great Spirit' in place of 'God' but I had to think of the audience that will be reading it and I don't think they will understand. Thanks a bunch!

Why Stewardship?

Since God created the heavens and the earth and everything on this earth, all his creations take on importance and an intrinsic worth because they are of his making. Since this creation of God has a purpose and order to it, that purpose and order is to be revered just as God's creations are to be revered. What God has created is fixed. God created the earth and everything in it and then he rested. It follows from this that anything that exploits or harms God's creations is sinful and an act of rebellion against God himself. Likewise anything that undermines the fixed purpose and order that God has given to the natural world is also sinful and an act of rebellion against God himself. This is no small point. Either God created the earth or he didn't. Either God gave purpose and order to the earth or he didn't. If one believes in these truths, then one believes in God. If one doesn't believe these truths, one can't possibly believe in God. This is the beginning point for all Christian believers.

It follows then, that one form of sin is people's hubris in believing that they can treat God's creations differently than God does; namely, manipulate and exploit them for purposes other than what they were created for. Another form of sin is also people's hubris in believing that they can reorder this earth and redefine its purpose to suit their own whims and fancies. The Christain life must be one of conserving wholeness over fragmentation, balance over imbalance, and harmony over disharmony. A Christian must love God's creation because God created it with love.

A long time ago when God said to the first of our kind, " You shall have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." We thought God meant for us to subdue the earth, to become its master. So we have spent out lifetimes engaged in battle against the earth. We have fought the rest of creation. We have locked horns with every living thing in a desperate campaign to gain control, to become sovereign.

We have been very successful. The statistics tell the grim story of our reign. It is the story of mass genocide against the rest of creation. Our species has become expert executioners. Now we can boast of killing off one entire species of God's creation every hour. It is estimated that we have exterminated nearly 20 percent of all species on this planet.

We believed that to have dominion meant to exert power, to control, to dominate. Dominion was never meant as a license for the wholesale extermination we see today. When God said "You shall have dominion", he was calling us to be a caretaker, a steward of his creation. Stewards do not exercise power over things. Their sense of security does not come from being in control, but rather from taking care of other beings.

Dominion, then does not mean the right to exploit nature. Far from it. Dominion means stewardship of nature. The first requisite of a steward is faithfulness, because he handles what belongs to another. Our role as a steward is that of a keeper, caretaker, custodian, preserver, restorer and healer of the household of earth.

Men and women then are to act as God's stewards on earth, preserving and protecting all of God's creations. This puts human beings in a special relationship with God. Since people are a creation of God, just like all of God's other creations they are equal to them in the finite nature of their physical being. Only God is infinite. While all creations are equal in that they owe their existance to the same source, human beings are nonetheless different. The difference is that human beings are made by God in his image and are given the responsibility to act as stewards for the rest of God's creations. Therefore, people are both part of nature, equal and dependent on all other living and nonliving things, and at the same time separate from nature with a responsibility to protect and care for it. As long as people accept both relationships, they are faithful to God's purpose in nature. However when people take advantage of their special relationship by taking over God's creation as their own, using it for their own ends rather than God's glory, they are rebelling against God.

Stewardship provides an answer to the question "Why should I take responsibility of caring for and preserving the natural order?" Because it is God's order. God created it and God entrusted human beings with the responsibility of overseeing it. It comes down to a question of serving God or rejecting him.

-- Anonymous, February 19, 2002

Answers

Sounds very good to me Debra, other than like you said, inserting "Great Spirit", or "Divine Creator" or "Supreme Being" or similar wordings to that effect, I think this pretty much sums up the whole purpose of our being here as defined by most all religions practiced here on Earth, Christian or non-Christian.

-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002

Wow Deb right on!!!!!!!! How long did it take you to put that together? just try not to get your feeling hurt if not to many understand! Hope your not a southern babtist! Kidding!!..Great stuff....Kirk

-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002

Very well put ma'am. If you own a piece of land, please be kind and take care of it. We 'own' that land for only a fraction of time; someone else will inherit or buy it. Leave it in better condition then how you got it.

-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002

Sounds great Debra. You've certainly put a lot of thought and effort into this. It's beautiful. By the way, I'm Catholic and right here on my desk is a Redemptorist Mission prayer book. Right in the middle of all the Catholic prayers is a Native American prayer to the Great Spirit! So cool!

-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002

Debra, I love it! Says exactly what I feel about the subject! But I too, as Kirk, am fearful of their reaction at the church. You know, I'm not a debater and so many people are and they sooo want to prove their point. Over the years I have let them have their cherished last word, but my heart and mind have been left agasp at how they stand firm that everything that they have been taught that is in the Bible is the solid truth. No room for human error nor incorrect interpretation. And we have all been taught that the most important thing is man, and that man is above nature and animals. I really like the way that you confront these issues.

They seem to be dead set to believe that human kind is the only one of importance, with everything else secondary. You go girl! If you can help pry open even one mind then perhaps it is worth your effort. I cannot help but roll my eyes when I see one of my neighbors all fired up to save souls run off to her church meeting, leaving all her garbage for the garbage man, with no thought at all to recycling any of it. But then these people can make the word Envirmentalist out to be a BAD word! I just have not been able to understand this!

I have gotton many a weird look when I have tried to explain to those who want me (and my children) in church, that, God is in the garden, in the woods, in the rain , to me, but hey , Emily Dickinson says it best. Some keep the Sabbath going to Church, I keep it staying at Home - With a bobolink for a Chorister, And an Orchard, for a Dome. - Emily Dickinson, No. 324, St. 1, 1862 I like that it makes me smile, NOt that I have any idea what a bobolink or a Chorister are! Maybe I should look them up! But I do know what a Dome is , and I especially know what an Orchard is, so I get the idea. I just don't feel God in church, sorry! You know maybe if I went to a Negro church service, smile! I don't know. I love God, I know that because I love these hills, these streams, the unending beauty that he provided for us, and it breaks my heart to see what we have done and what we continue to do.

Debra, this is my favorite Bible verse.

Revelation 14;17 Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come! AND WORSHIP HIM THAT MADE HEAVEN, AND EARTH, AND THE SEA, AND THE FOUNTAINS OF WATER.

Even the sunsets here on our little stead have been from the Gods. I tell ya, I look up to the sky and am in awe at the very spirit off him! Such Beauty! Last evening there were winds and the sky was a deep dark blue on the horizon of the hill to my North, but there was an area where all the clouds parted, and beyond this you could see light lined pink clouds which parted to show a pale blue sky. It was like you could so see beyond what you were the closest to. It was like a passage, a remembrance, a hope, of the summer blue sky .

And that wasn't even the all of it, to my South West where the sun was setting there was a great big celebration of purples and pinks and blues, and burnet umber. It is here that I bow down, I raise a feather to the sun of the sky, and I lower the feather to the god of the earth. I don't know about the God of Books ,the God of Buildings, the God of preachers but the God who made THIS, make him MY God!

ah! But alas they think I am a heathen and I cannot understand why they would take the word of another over the voice of the God who speaks to us all . If we listen , we can hear God for ourselves.

Robert Creely knew what I was speaking of when he wrote this.

I did however used to think, you know, in the woods walking,

and as a kid playing the woods, that there was a kind of immanence there, that woods, a places of that order had a sense, a kind of presence, that you could feel; that there was something peculiarly, physically present, a feeling of place almost conscious...like God. It evoked that .

- Robert Creely, Robert Creely and the Geniuof the American Common Place (Tom Clark), p. 40

If I have gotton totally off track here, please forgive, my Lea has only interrruped me at least ten times, I am going to go and read her a book!

Utopia

From the earth to the skies

Dare we reach?

Is it closer

then we think?

Will we look forever in the eyes?

And see that reality

Is the dream, disguised.

Trendle Ellwood

-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002

Tren, so glad to see you posting. I was missing you. A bobolink is a kind of songbird, and a chorister is a member of a choir. Does that help? :)

Great essay Debra!

-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002

Sheri, Hi! yah, Thanks! Now I know! a songbird instead of a choir, Ok! Love Ya Tren

-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002

Thank You everyone for your encouraging support. I knew I came to the right place. Annie-Thanks for your kind words.

Kirk- Well, once I sat down to write it took me about 2 weeks to get it the way I wanted it, but I have been writing it in my mind for a couple of years. Hey, glad your back and doing better!

j.r.-I completely agree.

tren-Thnanks for the wonderful thoughts.

vicki-How about posting that Native American prayer?

I have to say that in the 44 years I have attended church I have never once heard a sermon on the subject of our relationship with the rest of nature. Not only is that sad, but seems downright criminal to me. Also, I failed to mention that this would be printed in a mailing that would go to hundreds of churchs in the USA as well as numerous ones in the Philippines and Israel and perhaps some other places I don't know about.

The older I get the more I just can't sit by and keep my mouth shut. Some people would say God moved them to write it, but actually I was inspired by Dave Foreman. He has a new book coming out this spring titled "The War on Nature". Dave's considered a radical, but then so am I. If you liked my piece then you'll likely like Dave's work too.

For those of you who are interested Dave is the founder of the Wildlands Project, an organization I support with a donation every year. They put out a publication called "Wild Earth" and its very good. You can look up either one on the net for more info.

Thanks again, I love you all!

-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002

Nicely done Deb! I do hope it will cause the "audience" to think about these things rather than check out church doctrine before making any decisions.

Despite our apparent collective inability to understand with certainty alot of this stuff I am certain there is a profound logic and reason behind "The WORD" and to deny that we, as stewards, are to support the Earths ability to support life, is tantamount to condemming humanity to a lingering death and extinction.

-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002

I too seldom have the oportunity to connect philosophy wise with christians. Your words inspire me and remind me that beyond all of the "stuff" we are all one. Thank you Debra. Peace jz

-- Anonymous, February 20, 2002