Call me naive, even ignorant if you like, but I cannot help feel that something is missing in all the deliberations, and protests for that matter, taking place in Durban at the COP 17 Conference on Climate change.
This "something" lies at the very heart of our relationship with the natural world and has everything to do with a sad and troubling absence of a sense of the sacred.
The reality is, we will neither love nor save that which we do not experience and hold as sacred. Therefore, in all our struggles to adjust our human presence to the natural world, this sacred relational dimension has to be taken seriously. Without it, the natural world is still primarily seen as a commodity for human use, and not as a mode of sacred presence to be cherished and venerated.
As long as this dimension of the sacred is absent, efforts, no matter how sincere and intelligent, to curb environmental devastation through the use of renewable sources of energy, will continue to have an air of futility about them.
Only our sense of the sacred, and the efforts that flow from it, will ultimately save us. This is sadly missing in Durban.
This "something" lies at the very heart of our relationship with the natural world and has everything to do with a sad and troubling absence of a sense of the sacred.The reality is, we will neither love nor save that which we do not experience and hold as sacred. Therefore, in all our struggles to adjust our human presence to the natural world, this sacred relational dimension has to be taken seriously. Without it, the natural world is still primarily seen as a commodity for human use, and not as a mode of sacred presence to be cherished and venerated.
As long as this dimension of the sacred is absent, efforts, no matter how sincere and intelligent, to curb environmental devastation through the use of renewable sources of energy, will continue to have an air of futility about them.
Only our sense of the sacred, and the efforts that flow from it, will ultimately save us. This is sadly missing in Durban.
...Don..after reading your posts on the COP 17 conference i now realize that i dont have a solid enviornmental theology..in other words i can easily sense God in creation when i view a magnificant scenery on earth or look into the night sky and view the heavens but i think i lack a clear strong sense of the everyday sacredness of the ground i walk over daily..evidently the American Indian was privy to this revelation knowledge but our culture neglected to adopt it from them...after i initally read this post i proceeded to do some research on the internet so that i could gel some thoughts on the topic and write an intelligent comment but then i realized that i didnt know what i was talking about..though i did manage to find an excellent link that i would like to share with you all if i may:
ReplyDelete:http://wonderofcreation.org/creation-quote-of-the-day/
All I can say, Don, is - Amen!
ReplyDeleteThanks John - appreciate your comment.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link - I'll certainly check it out. Your words touch on the heart of the matter. Thanks again.
ReplyDeleteDon,
ReplyDeleteHow does one go about convincing someone to treat the natural world as "sacred" if someone does not have any reference point for what the word "sacred" means? Sacred is religious terminology, and (in some ways) it seems pre-modern. The culture at large understands the language of economic consumerism, entertainment, and technology; but I don't know that the "sacred" is an idea that people can readily understand. At least, that's my experience. Perhaps your experiences differ. For me, however, I see this as a real barrier; and I feel hesitant to "convert" people to religious language. This is not to say that I disagree with your point here. Not at all. I just wonder about how to communicate ideas that are "sacred" to a world that is secular and materialistic.
I can't help but ponder the thought, that because of our messing up the earth we were given to live on, we are surprising God. This is nothing new or a big surprise to Him. We are excellent at messing up things. We have taken most of our problems to God in the past for Him to deal with, why are we thinking that this problem, we are going to solve all on our own? Let's leave the sacred out of this one to our detriment.
ReplyDeleteYou're so right erdman. The issue of language is crucial. I tried the word "sacred" out on my one son and his response was that it sounded "Bible-ish. The word wasn't clear to him. When I explained something of what it meant, he said, "O, you mean "precious." Interesting. Thanks for your timely reminder about language.
ReplyDeleteWe're certainly are excellent at messing things up, yet we're so capable in ability.
ReplyDelete