God and the enviornment
I was talking to an enviormentalist the other day and I was so enthralled by their love of nature and a desire to protect the beauty of the natural enviorment. Some time later I was talking to a developer and they were telling how they loved the beauty and the wonder of nature. I said, you almost sound like an enviormentalist - they laughed and said, I think I am, but I also think that I disagree politically with the enviormentalist. I love the beauty of nature in the Pacific Northwest. I grew up here and spent 51 years hiking in the mountains, walking the sea shore, and just looking around amazed at what I believe it the most beautiful part of the world.
The Bible says that The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Psalms 19:1-3
What a beautiful concept, nature speakes to every language and every culture. It's language is understood by all humanity. This is what we see at Washington Cathedral as we worship in front of a beautiful water fall. People in grief, people whose pace of life is just crazy, people who need to deepen their spiritual life and regain their center are touched by the God of nature who speaks to them in ways that an agnostic or a fundamentalist can begin to understand.
I hope the beauty of nature and the love of the enviorment permeats our whole campus. I hope it inspires each of us to take care of the careful ballance of our eco system that we live in. I pray that conservative and liberals can have conversations about our precioius enviorment that go beyond the political monologues which now exist. I think it is going to take a whole bunch of descent discussion by kind people of differing oppinions before we begin to gain any kind of consensus upon which we can move forward.
What do you think.
Pastor Tim White - Washington Cathedral
posted by Washington Cathedral at 1:29 PM
3 Comments:
I think there is much ground for people to agree. Even if they are politically different. I would probably not be considered on the same side politically as an environmentalist myself and yet I probably agree with a lot of things they wish to see accomplished. I want to breath cleaner air even if I have to drive a hybrid car (of course when they have hybrid SUV's as are coming out now I get a little more excited by them). I don't want to go hiking in nature and find it filled with garbage, no matter if it is in the mountains away from civilization or on a river front path in the middle of multi-story buildings. I believe people have a responsibility to take care of our environment while I also recognize that we people are here just like the animals are. Nature would be one of my favorite places to get together with an environmentalist and talk about our common love of everything around us (or arm wrestle to settle our differences).
My Dad ingrained in me the basic tenets of the Boy Scouts; one of them was "Leave it better than you found it." That's good advice, and I try to live by it. I think it applies not only to the environment, but also to our communities, our relationships, etc.
I really like the concept for the whole Washington Cathedral campus. I pray that we are able to build the whole thing in my lifetime. The waterfall is so beautiful and the new waterfall in the Re-Creation Center will be awesome. It's a blessing to watch people relax when the come into the Cathedral and see the waterfall.
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