Creation Care and the Green Movement

A paradigm shift is taking place; one in which humankind’s spiritual nature recognizes our role in caring for this sacred landscape known as Mother Earth.

Everything is connected.  We are all one.  These statements are at the very center of Unity thinking and are reflected in the mystical, unitive teachings that lie at the heart of all the world’s spiritual traditions.  They also underlie the core organizing principles of the ecological or green movement.  James Lovelock’s hypothesis of the earth as Gaia: a single, yet complex organism in delicate balance, is dramatically reinforced by the breathtaking photographs of earth taken from space.  No boundaries can be seen, everything is interconnected.

This is an inspiring realization, and we may intellectually acknowledge it as true, but it requires attentiveness and vigilance to allow it to become a living reality in our lives.  The delicate nature of this network of interdependence means that it is easily ignored or brushed aside by the pressing needs of our daily lives.

These pressing needs, that we all share, come, not from a consciousness of God’s radiant provision, but from that nagging sense that we are somehow separate, that there is something to defend and that I better control and protect what is mine.

We see this scenario of separation played out vividly across the sacred landscape of Mother Earth.  Rather than a living spiritual presence, the sacred creation of God, the earth is considered to be essentially physical: a resource to be exploited, mastered, and used.  Or it is seen as a commodity that has only economic value.  Sometimes the earth is viewed as the setting for our activities and our fun, a picturesque backdrop to life instead of an integral part of it.

It is ironic that the green movement, while seeking to heal this divide, is itself seen, in some quarters, as a divisive influence, holding back progress and putting creatures before people.  The Bible is often cited as sanctioning this divine right of humankind to exploit the earth.

A dramatic change is happening across America that is bringing a new understanding and new hope.  It is the Creation Care or Earth Care Movement.  Creation Care teaches that everything that God creates is good and that human beings are charged with being wise stewards of God’s intricate and miraculous creation.  This movement is not limited to one or two denominations but covers the spectrum of religious affiliations from evangelical to liberal, from Jewish to Buddhist.  It is a spiritual bridge that brings people together in a common purpose.

The old paradigm of exploitation, based as it is on the concept that we are set apart from the rest of nature by a God who we, in turn, have set apart from us can no longer stand.  The cost is too high.  Global warming, pollution, illness, war, economic distress, and the struggle for resources are just some examples of the bitter harvest we are now reaping.

Yes, there are enormous challenges to face and much work to do.  Lest you feel it is now time to throw your hands up in disgust and frustration let me emphasize the positive aspect to all this.  In my experience the greatest block to the deepening of our spiritual awareness is not selfishness or willful acts of hurt and hatred.  It is complacency.  Often, it takes crisis to get our attention and devastation to wake us up.  Sacred activist and author Andrew Harvey invites us to “follow our heartbreak,” not so that we end up wallowing in hopelessness and self pity, but because, if we dare to face the horror and the darkness with a true embrace, new awareness will invariably follow.

Creation Care, with its emphasis on the interdependence of all people with each other and with creation, is a new paradigm based on sensitive care our precious and sacred home:  Mother Earth.

Paul Hawken, the environmentalist, entrepreneur, and best selling author, addresses this idea in very practical ways in his recent book Blessed Unrest.  He does not feel overwhelmed by the challenges facing humankind but identifies and catalogues what he considers to be the largest grassroots social movement in history helping to restore grace, justice, and beauty to our land.

This social movement is not monolithic.  It consists of hundreds of thousands of small groups each doing something to shift the old paradigm of exploitation and separation into the new paradigm that honors and cares for the sacred presence of Mother Earth.  They have been awakened by the heartbreak and have chosen a healing path of action.

An initiative of the Association of Unity Churches is another example of this sacred activism.  In establishing Earthcare International, the Association has encouraged many Unity Churches and congregations to take energy audits, recycle, and in other ways ‘green’ their communities.

The good news is that this kind of sacred ecological awareness is not just for tree hugging liberals either.  In recent years evangelical Christians have established the idea of Creation Care in their own congregations.  Rick Warren, the senior minister of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California and best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life has said, “We cannot be all that God wants us to be without caring about the earth.”

Modern technology can provide potent and effective tools to help us shift to the new paradigm.  Websites, blogs, YouTube, for example, give ordinary people, like you and me, a power and influence and a way to connect with others that was impossible even a few years ago.

In my own church community we have taught from the resources made available by the Northwest Earth Institute (NWEI.org) based in Portland, Oregon.  This institute provides, among other things, high quality guides for small group study on a variety of ecological subjects.  We are also involved in the creation of an interfaith environmental alliance of faith communities in our county, one part of a larger movement throughout the state of Texas.

I am sure that you know of activities and initiatives going on in your own community or spiritual home.

As Unity students we know that the most potent means to effect true change lies in consciousness.  All the well-meaning initiatives in the world will have no lasting effect if they are not centered in consciousness of the One Presence of God in all things.  This means we do what we can with the understanding that we have but we acknowledge that it is God moving in and through us, and moving in and through our world, that is the true author of renewal and restoration.  One of the great progenitors of the Unity way of thinking, Ralph Waldo Emerson, puts it beautifully when he states that, “All that I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all that I have not seen.”  That delicate network of interdependence assures us that when we have made connection at one point we are in fact connecting to the Whole.  It is this awareness that keeps me from becoming overwhelmed by the tasks ahead.

And so I call myself an optimist.  The world is not broken, and in the light of Truth, divisions are illusory.  As we continue to stay centered in that unitive understanding, regardless of apparent evidence to the contrary, the creative presence of God will give us all we need to achieve our heart’s desire.

The poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning writes:

“Earth is crammed with Heaven.

And every bush aflame with God.

But only those who see take off their shoes.”

If I have a vision it is that more and more of us take off our shoes, more and more often, so that others, seeing our freedom, connectedness and joy will remember their inheritance too, and a new earth, crammed with heaven will be established for all.