"Creation flavored" thoughts on the lectionary texts
Date: October 19, 2008
(OK - I finally got so far behind that I would have been putting out EarthWords for October 12 on or after October
12, so I decided to just jump over it and do EarthWords for Oct 19 and maybe get back on some kind of a schedule! And
we are on the fourth and final Sunday of the Season of Creation - River Sunday. The Psalm and the reading from Revelation
are from that calendar. The Exodus passage is from the Revised Common Lectionary.)
Text: Psalm 104.24-33 The wonderful diversity
of Nature
Thoughts
"How manifold are thy works, the earth is full of thy creatures, the sea teems with living things both small and great."
- Earth is such a fertile, garden planet, packed with such diversity, and yet the report this week that up to 25% of
land mammals might be in jeopardy. Check the International Union for the Conservation of Nature website
www.iucn.org. The daily newspaper from the World Conservation Congress is called Terraviva! (I love it!) But seriously,
the report is extremely troubling. Not just because of the fact that "we" (humans) are a "land mammal species" ourselves!
There go the ships, with non-native and invasive species in their cargoes and ballast waters!
This whole wonderful Creation comes from God and is as intended in God's dream. When we disregard God's dream,
sometimes things don't go so well for God's Creation.
Text: Exodus 33.12-23 Moses in the cleft of
the rock
Thoughts
God's presence with Israel will show that they are a favored people. Is the fact that we live on a garden planet
evidence that we are a favored people?
A cleft in the rock - a safe place while the storm blows by. As a child we had a rock outcropping across the street
from our house. I remember hiding in the clefts of the rocks - from playmates, not from storms! We were out walking
in the woods today where water had hollowed out caves in a hillside - I could picture people building a wall over the opening
and snuggling around a fire inside!
Text: Revelation 22.1-5 The River of the Water of
Life, the Tree of Life
Thoughts
The water of life - a veritable river of it! I live on the edge of a whole "inland sea" of it (Lake
Superior). Other places are parched and dry. How am I to think about that? Again we were out walking today
where a lovely spring rose up near the bottom of a hillside and flowed away over lush, green, moist, moss-covered rocks.
Here it's just someplace in the woods at the end of a dirt road. Other places - it's a holy shrine.
And the tree of life - we have a huge silver maple in our front yard that was hanging down over the sidewalk
and the street and starting to hit the roof, and so we finally had to have it trimmed. It looks more like a "tame" tree
now. I miss the wildness, but I guess you have to make some accommodation to city life.
The twelve kinds of fruit - one for each month, and the joy of eating each as it came into season, as opposed
to the ordinariness of having whatever you want whenever. Apple cider is starting to get mellow here!
The leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations. I don't really know what that means, but it
sure sounds like we could use it now! And even when we list cleaning and cooling the air, blocking the wind, holding
the soil and the water, storing the carbon, providing homes for us (and for other land mammals!), and apples and peaches
and walnuts - we have probably only scratched the surface of all that trees do for us.
The leaves here are glorious these days - going out in a blaze of color.
Prayer
God of this world and all worlds,
in your great wisdom and grace you created (wild) trees -
with leaves of green, yellow, red, and brown,
with needles soft and sharp,
with branches sticking out at all kinds of wonderful angles,
with roots that go deep into the soil and even the rock.
And you created water to rise in springs,
splash in streams beside the trees,
and fall over the rocks to pools below.
These are just a few of the manifold works of your hands,
and we give you thanks for them today.
One Thing to Do This Week
Cherish a tree. Plant one, trim one, leave one wild and untrimmed, bring in some of the autumn leaves if that's
what's happening where you live. If it's spring time, I read once that you can put your ear to the trunk and hear the
sap flowing. I've never tried it - if it's spring time where you live, you could try it and let me know!
