Love what God found ‘good’

by Letters Editor · August 9, 2012

From Rosemary Gravenor, Durban

I always believed that religion was primarily about being concerned with pleasing God. Is our Creator pleased with the state of the earth in our present time? I am sure there can be no pleasure with the fact that we are killing the place humanity calls home, at an ever-increasing pace.

"Again and again, God repeats the refrain showing a connection between the Land flourishing if people act justly."

What has the Catholic Church done to create a sense of awareness in the cultures of nations who are, at the root, proving to be anti-life?

Is there a religion that has appreciated that the Earth is the primary sacred community; that the human species is only one of many species? It seems that the whole of the Western world is in denial.

From the Hebrew Scriptures and prophecies of those speaking God�s mind, I get the message that God is primarily concerned with justice and love. Again and again, God repeats the refrain showing a connection between the Land flourishing if people act justly.

Why did Christianity not seem to make the connection that being just, being righteous, was not only how we interacted with one another but that our Earth depended on our just actions�act justly with the fruits of God�s garden? Do we love what God found �good�?

Does the wisdom of our Catholic Social Action include emphasis on the sacredness of the Earth?

I think if the purpose of religion is only to bring �good� people (read: obedient to Church teachings) to Heaven then it is largely missing the purpose of Christ�s passion and resurrection.

Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry write in their book The Universe Story: �The human community becomes sacred through its participation in the larger planetary community�.

For me this is far healthier than enforcing doctrine around human behavioural issues which hardly make for the necessary rise in consciousness to see what we really have to die to.

Matthew 16:26 has our Lord Jesus asking: �What does it profit to gain the whole world (material gain) and suffer the loss of soul?� More pertinent to the present point is Mark 8:36 where the loss is that of life and in Luke 9 the loss of self.

God through all the prophets, including Jesus, was not calling us to use band-aids towards God�s beloved anawim [vulnerable]: the poor, the oppressed, the marginalised but to rid ourselves of whatever is the cause (greed, avarice, plain unjust wielding of power, control, the need for progress, etc) of people being at the bottom of the pile.

I am praying that the Year of Faith will bring a raising of consciousness to declare the next Church year a Year of Planet Earth, putting Christ back into all things, so that humanity can start to love and appreciate the generous gift of a generous God.