In the Christian tradition, for the last two thousand years or so, we have been living with the conviction that we do not belong here on Earth. The Earth is a place of exile for us from our true home Heaven, a place we yearn for with longing and huge expectation. The God who is the ultimate object of this deep desiring exists outside of our Universe in a different order of reality. On occasion, this remote God manifests in our world in some miraculous manner. There is something deeply unsatisfying about a remote God who withdraws from our Universe and watches it unfold as one would watch a play.
The Earth is a child of the Universe. We are children of the Earth. Our very existence as a human species is the fruit of long ages of evolution. Our life story on Earth began with the emergence of the most ancient Prokaryote life form some 3.8 billion years ago. Over the meandering path of the evolutionary process, our genes were honed and fashioned as were the genes of every other living being that exists on Earth today. We are the fruit of the Earth, nurtured to life in the deep mystery of Earth’s creative processes. We are genetically related to all other living things. We are of the Earth. It is through our earthly experiences that we encounter God. Our God engages with us in and through our Universe. To enter deeply into the mystery of the Universe is to enter deeply into the mystery of God.
The God of this mysterious evolutionary story is not an external Puppet Master pulling strings here and there to make the life system work better or to redeem some part of it from the periodic crises that afflict all of life from time to time. No, the God of the evolutionary story exists deep within the process. Divine creativity sustains every turn and twist of the evolutionary journey, even those twists and turns that seem to have ended in failure. There have been many of such “failures” along the way. Almost 99% of all the species that have ever lived upon the Earth have become extinct. Divine creativity is as much present in the blind alleys as in the evolutionary highways that have led to spectacularly new forms of life. The Divine is in the process of evolution all of the time providing its creative energy, calling forth new possibilities endlessly.
What We Are Awakening To
- We are awakening to a new understanding of our relatedness to the whole Universe and all that it contains.
- We are awakening to the presence of the Divine in every twist and turn of the Universe story.
- We are awakening to the egregious manner in which we have plundered the Earth’s resources and brought about the extinction of many species.
- What we are awakening to is an awareness of our loss of the sense of the Sacred in all of creation.
- We are awakening to the responsibility and privilege of our mode of being as the self-awareness of the Universe itself.
- We are awakening to the fragility our presence on the Earth and how capable we are of bringing about our own extinction.
- We are awakening to our need to change our ways and thread more lightly upon the Earth.
When I ponder the Cosmic Story in the light of the above reflection:
- Is there anything about it that resonates with my own experience?
- Do I find any resistance within me to this way of viewing things?
- In what ways am I challenged to a re-alignment of how I view God, Earth, life itself?
Why not share a response to your experience of the Lenten reflections by writing for our Blog. All you need to do is:
- Participate in our Blog. Just offer a few thoughts on what's happening for you!
- Send it by email to the Webmaster. Use this link: Click Here.
- Your text will be placed in the Lenten Reflections Blog the very same day.