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Taking Care of God’s Creation

I am pleased to post this contribution to the Nativity Caring for Creation blog from Dargan Gilmore.

It is an election year, and that means that candidates and their super-PACs are hard at work trying to polarize the issues. Instead of trying to bring people together, it always seems that we are being asked to choose a side. The much-debated concept of “climate change” is one of these issues. The political powers at work insist that we believe in it, or not. There is no common ground. In the aftermath of all of this line-drawing, I think a lot of people give up trying to decide what is right. This leads to apathy, and inaction.

I think the people that demand that we choose a side on climate change are missing the point. Earth — God’s beautiful creation — is polluted. Our air quality is poor and in some areas, dangerous. Our streams are filled with trash. Our water is undrinkable in areas. Our oceans filled with plastic, and our landfills are overflowing. Through these numerous acts of pollution, we poison the very creation that God made in his own image — ourselves.

Instead of debating whether climate change exists, let’s find something we can agree upon and take action: The earth is polluted, and getting worse each year. The 7.4 billion people living on God’s earth owe it to their children to leave the world in a better place than they found it. Through thoughtful stewardship, rather than abuse of the Earth, we not only glorify God’s creation, but we also help ourselves and our children.

April 22nd is Earth Day — a time to celebrate God’s beautiful work. Environmental Stewardship at Nativity has put together several events during the month of April to give you some tools to help lessen your own individual impact on the planet. Working alone, it is hard to imagine having any impact on a problem so vast. But if the 7.4 billion people of God’s creation could find a way to come together, instead of finding ways to divide themselves, just imagine how much we could do.

Dargan Gilmore

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Growing in God’s Creation: Connect to the Holy around You

In many respects our very well being and the future of our civilization is connected to the health of the earth. We have become alienated from nature in an unprecedented way and we have not been good stewards. Our broken relationship with creation is a reflection of our disrespect for God and for one another. Some eco-theologians say our ecological crisis results from a human spiritual crisis. Our renewed work on care for creation needs to address that crisis and to start by rebuilding our relation with God, with each other, and all of creation.
As people of faith we know that God’s spirit is continually at work to mend broken relationships. God has called us to be a partner in that reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-19). Healing will require our deep commitment and involvement. Within our lives, we must bring care of creation to a central place.
We often feel overwhelmed and that we have too many problems to deal with, but we must acknowledge that caring for creation is not just one more concern, it is at the core of our existence. We will not be healed if the earth is not healed.
We can be engaged in rebuilding relationships in many ways. We can do it by changing the way we live and walk on the earth, and we can do it together by working with one another in our congregations or our public lives.
For over the last decade, I have committed myself to working on building those relationships. I cannot say that when I started my journey I had a clear view of the destination, but I knew that I would not get there alone. As Michael Schut, Episcopal eco-theologian says, the place to start is to connect to the Holy around you.
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