God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” – Genesis 1:25-28
God is powerful and kind. He created us and gave us a glorious place to live, multiply and prosper. He gave us the world, a gift that requires – deserves – our care and gratitude.
We have not always upheld our end of the bargain. In fact, we’ve often been a bit like the owner of the goose that laid the golden egg in Aesop’s Fable.
As you may recall, a man had a goose that laid actual golden eggs – one per day. And at one such egg a day, the guy was going to live a very comfortable life. But he decided he could get rich quicker by cutting open the goose and getting the multitude of eggs waiting inside. He was disappointed to learn that eggs are created one at a time – and he had destroyed the egg creator and with it his golden dream.
Pope Francis doesn’t want us to destroy our golden egg, the earth. So, today he has asked us to observe World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation:
The annual World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation will offer individual believers and communities a fitting opportunity to reaffirm their personal vocation to be stewards of creation, to thank God for the wonderful handiwork which he has entrusted to our care, and to implore his help for the protection of creation as well as his pardon for the sins committed against the world in which we live. The celebration of this Day, on the same date as the Orthodox Church, will be a valuable opportunity to bear witness to our growing communion with our Orthodox brothers and sisters. We live at a time when all Christians are faced with the same decisive challenges, to which we must respond together, in order to be more credible and effective. It is my hope that this Day will in some way also involve other Churches and ecclesial Communities, and be celebrated in union with similar initiatives of the World Council of Churches. – Pope Francis
My job requires that I spend most of my time indoors in meetings, working at a computer or talking on the phone. But each I find time for a walk outside in the “real” world. It is a chance to clear my head, stretch my legs and let God remind me of the vast unmerited gifts I have received.
Today, I’ll be thinking about the earth.
