Today’s author is Prince of Peace member, Carol Swanson.
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are (1 John 3:1).
Recently I read a book by Old Testament scholar Terence Fretheim titled God So Enters into Relationships That…A Biblical View. It has pull-quotes (If that’s the right term?), key sentences every few pages, and I thought I’d share just a few.
- Interrelatedness is a basic characteristic not only of the relationship between God and people (and between God and the world) but also of the very nature of the created order. (p4)
- Both God and the world’s creatures are who they are because of relationships of which they are a part. (p8)
- The idea of relationship is so basic a category in the Bible that it should be placed up front in any overarching consideration of Old Testament theological perspectives involving God and the world’s creatures. (p17)
- Each created entity is in symbiotic relationship with every other. (p27)
Much of Christian history has focused on our human relationship with God and with one another, and we tend to read the passages of the Creator’s relationship with the natural world as poetic metaphor and don’t take them very seriously—to our peril. Our western culture has objectified the natural world: We rank ourselves above and separate from nature; we have subdued the earth to use it to our sole benefit. And now we are in trouble with climate change.
We think in “anthropocentric” terms when instead we should think in “biocentric” terms. All of life is important (not just human life), for God is the Giver of Life. God loves all life, all creation. And God has created this universe and this world to be interrelated, symbiotic, in its very nature, as Fretheim explains. And we creatures, in turn, affect God, who feels our joys and our suffering. I believe it would be helpful to see the children in 1 John 3:1 as all of creation, the beloved of the Father, the Creator.
A delightful and thoughtful book I have enjoyed reading and pondering is THE MISHOMIS BOOK, The Voice of the Ojibway, by Edward Benton-Banai (spiritual leader, teacher, cofounder of AIM), written for all ages but especially the young. Mishomis is Grandfather and Nokomis is Grandmother. They tell the Origin Stories of the Anishinabe and freely share the kinship values that we need to hear and learn to appreciate. First Nations people value Kinship above all else. Family and community, plants and animals: all of life are their relatives, their brothers and sisters, teachers. The beaver, the whale, strawberries, and the playful dust devils are just some of those who impart their wisdom. The Earth is home and Mother who nurtures us all. Spirits are guardians and teachers, and the Creator is the Great Mystery is the source and giver of life to all.
Tomorrow’s devotion shares an important prophecy of the Anishinabe that we must hear.
But first, in closing, I share a meditation from Spirit Wheel, by Steven Charleston, a Choctaw elder and Episcopal bishop (p 90).
OUR SIBLINGS
All my relatives.
Every living creature
Every bird that flies
Every fish that swims
Every animal that walks the earth;
They are all my relatives.
In the great family of Spirit
The spirals of kinship
Weave us all into relationship
Mutual, caring, connected.
Since all that Spirit does is done in love
All that Spirit created was created in love.
There are no orphans left standing alone
For all are embraced by the compassion
Of a common Creator.
How well we treat our siblings
Is how well we honor our Maker.