For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. – Romans 8:19-21

Sunday morning, walking Max around the Town Common while the coffee brewed, I checked out a little of the damage from Friday evening’s storm.

It’s always impressive when the wind can snap a tree. The sheer power reminds me of how our world is both beautiful and dangerous at the same time. It is as if nature – aware of the tendency of humankind to ride roughshod over the natural order – chooses to step up sometimes and literally demand our respect.

It makes me think about the curious relationship human beings have to this planet we call home. Curious and fragile, it turns out.

We must have fresh water, for example, to live. But according the the U.S. Geological Survey that accounts for only 2.5% of the water on Earth, while the remaining 97.5 is salty.

We require a fairly narrow and balanced temperature range, yet our sun (the constantly exploding ball of plasma that is 1.8 to 5.4 million degrees at the corona and 27-million degrees at the core) that gives us light, life and energy – is a constant threat that needs to be modulated via a careful balance of chemicals and compounds in our fragile atmosphere.

Then everything from our distance from the sun, to the angle of our tilt, to the speed of our rotation, to our relationship to our moon and the other planets that hurtle around the Sun at unimaginable speeds (our average orbit velocity is over 67,000 miles per hour) – all this is calibrated to specific tolerances that (currently) seem to favor human existence.

I have always been fascinated by the biblical mandate to “rule over” and to be “stewards” of this good Earth, because so many use the scriptures as a justification for exploiting our planet. Whereas a steward is someone who is assigned the responsibility of caring for a property in the name of the owner.

My personal theology sees not just humankind benefitting from the idea of salvation but also the planet itself. “For creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed…” I like the idea of Earth owning in a sense a collective consciousness that is constantly perturbed and disappointed at how its inhabitants abuse the beautiful balance of creation.

“Maybe this time… maybe this year, this decade, this century, this millennia… maybe this nation, this administration, this power, this empire will turn out to be the kind of children of God the Creator can trust to take care of this fragile, beautiful, increasingly compromised planet?”

With Agency comes Responsibility

We, created to reflect the image of God in our capacity for creativity and innovation, have both agency and responsibility. I believe it is time we responded with less entitlement and more love.

My definition of salvation is absolutely apropos to this conversation: “Joining in with God’s work, participating in the divine initiatives of love, grace, mercy, peace, healing, justice, goodness and reconciliation.”

Let’s reconcile the planet! – DEREK