The Beloved Earth

“I believe in God…the creator…of earth maybe one of the most proclaimed – and least believed, barely practiced – assertions of all the propositions in the Creed.  In fact, religion itself has forever proclaimed the truth about the value of Creation on one hand and taken it away on the other.  Earth, we got the impression, was a kind of divine mistake.  Its temptations delayed our sanctification.  Its glories, beautiful but false, seduced us to substitute lesser things for the real values of life.  Its cycles simply reminded us of the inferiority of our own natures.  Dust we were and to dust we would return.  It pitted the material against the spiritual dimensions of life.  It misled us about the purpose of existence.  It was the forbidden apple in everybody’s life.

“The earth, we said, was the thunder roll of divine presence.  And then we proceeded to ignore its place in the flowering of the human spirit and the achievement of human development.  Creation loomed as a temptation to be overcome. “    Joan Chittister from "In Search of Belief"

I am lucky to have been raised by a father who loved nature.  He taught me to be observant of what was around me whenever we were outside the city. Not only did he love spotting some wild animal (large or small) but he taught me to read the signs of the wilderness. One time when Brad and I and our family were coming down from Glacier Point at the end of a week’s camping, our truck engine quickly became hot.  We had no water with us.  I was able to spot a water source not too far off the road.  We filled up whatever utensil we had, used a pair of my tights as a filter and were able to add enough water to get to civilization for repair. My dad was responsible for this.  

 When my mother was able to sell her business and have more time to do what she loved, she became quite the gardener.  Her passion seemed to be having her hands in the dirt and growing flowers, fruits, vegetables.

My mother and father turned a barren piece of high desert property into an oasis.  They started raising a hog and a beefalo every year.  My dad could not watch when the slaughter truck would come out to turn his beloved animals into the next year’s main course for both my parents and our family.  Even though he knew better, he loved those creatures.

Like my parents, I have grown in my passion for the earth.  I think this is one of the things that fascinates me about Native American spirituality.  If this God is the creator of all, and I have no idea how that really happened, then nothing that was created by this Mother/Father should we consider either evil or disposable.  We should passionately love this place we live and do what we can to care for it and preserve it.  I hope I can pass this to my grandchildren.  

 I hope I can help them hold on to the child-love of the dirt, the birds, the squirrels, worms and all the rest of our co-inhabitants.