I've recently found a faith community that fits me like a gloves. That has always seemed impossible, as I practice what Matthew Fox calls deep ecumenism. I am primarily a mystical Christian, with a heavy dose of Pagan, and a healthy dash of Buddhist. This community is called The Land, and they are a Methodist-based outdoor church dedicated to social justice and the Earth.
I have been leading the morning study using Matthew Fox's book Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth. I am sharing the class curriculum plus a few notes here.
Class One of Creation Spirituality
I borrowed some of the material from ELCA's Awakening to God’s call to Earthkeeping.
Read: The universe had been developing for some 8-10 billion years
prior to Earth’s appearing.
The Earth was “born” nearly 5 billion years ago. It is part
of a solar system, that is itself part of the Milky Way galaxy; and our solar
system is in what you might call the “backwaters”—an outer arm— of our spiral
galaxy.
Our Milky Way galaxy contains about 300-400 billion stars,
many similar to our Sun, with planetary bodies of their own. Our home galaxy
moves in relationship to a group of some 26 other galaxies, known as a
“cluster;” ours is called the “Local Group.”
This so named Local Group cluster of galaxies is, itself,
part of a group of over 1000 clusters, making up what is called the Virgo
Supercluster.
Now try to imagine a single supercluster as a white
dot—remember that it contains hundreds, if not thousands, of galaxies,
themselves containing billions of stars …there are estimated to be something on
the order of 10 million such “dots,” such superclusters, spread across the vast
expanse of space.
[pause] It’s about more than our human minds can conceive
of, isn’t it? Does this sort of knowledge shake our faith, or fill us with awe
and wonder, or a sense of humility and gratitude?
Scripture
Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the
love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ephesians 3:18-19
I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all
the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know
the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may filled with all
the fullness of God.
Psalm 104: 30
When you send forth your Spirit, they [the creatures, the
earth, the heavens] are created; and you renew the face of the ground.
Psalm 8:1, 3-6a.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the
Earth!
When we look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the
moon and the stars that you have established, we cannot help but wonder: what
are human beings that you are even mindful of them, mortals that you so care
for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with
glory and honor. You have placed us on this Earth and given us dominion over
the work of your hands.
Questions
Read poem at beginning of book and discuss how society might
be different if this was taught from the beginning.
·
When you consider our physical location within
the universe, do you find it humbling? Frightening? Exciting? Other feelings?
·
How does your consideration of the vastness,
mystery, and wonder of our universe influence your sense of the immensity of
God’s love for us?
·
Knowing what we do of the universe, does it
increase or decrease the significance of humans? Does it, should it, affect how
we relate to one another and the natural world around us? How we relate to God?
·
What is your hopeful vision, as a child of God,
for how humans should live on the Earth in connection with the rest of
creation?
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