The Stones Cry Out

Marya Grathwohl, a Sister of St. Francis, describes an experience with a longtime friend driving up Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains: 

Dorie, who had distanced herself from organized religion, nevertheless coins the phrase “rock rosary” to express the sequence of life mysteries locked in the rock layers: reptiles, forests, amphibians, fish, bodies of cooperating cells, photosynthesis.

As the mountain reveals the splendor of life’s evolution, I find myself asking, “Who are we human beings? Within this array of life-forms, what is our role, our gift to Earth?” These immense questions require a universe or religion….

Then near the summit, we abruptly round a cliff. Another sign: PRECAMBRIAN 2.9 BILLION YEARS AGO. GRANITE. And my soul slams into awe….

We find a pull-off. I race back to the cliff and near the sign pick up something small. A stone, heavy for its size, glistens with quartz. I hold it close to my lips.

“You,” I whisper, “you witnessed life’s genius in creating photosynthesis.”

I stand silent, listening. Time stops.

In my hands is a scripture, a stone crying out. I recall that it was a mere two thousand years ago that Jesus said, “If the people are silent, the stones will cry out” [Luke 19:40].

Earth, a rocky planet, cries out. Earth cries out against global mass extinction of species, the destruction of human-caused climate change, and the prowess of militarized and industrialized humanity to poison and destroy Earth’s support systems: soil, air, and water. Earth cries out against the suffering we humans cause each other.

Here is my question for the mountain. How do we learn to become contributing members of the pageant of life, of this ongoing story of a communion of species, subjects in their own right? [1]

Grathwohl describes soulful beauty in nature as the Divine Presence: 

After almost fifty years of being a Franciscan Sister, I learned that beauty for Franciscan theologians and philosophers is the ultimate and most intimate knowing of God, another name for God, the name for God. Saint Bonaventure and Blessed John Duns Scotus teach that the beauty and diversity of creation nourish us through suffering and loss. When we’ve run out of purpose, when memories of war sicken us, when Earth is attacked with unparalleled savagery for coal, gas, oil, timber, and profit, when poverty runs rampant and extreme wealth for very few soars, when friends betray us, and everyone we love lives far away … then, still beauty endures, and helps us make it through. Like God…. [2]

I sense now that soul knows itself and its life within the great compassionate Mystery we strive to name. Soul stirs, rises, grows toward and within the unnameable silence and beauty of God, a mothering watery God, a rain beyond Catholic, beyond any specific religion or creed, a rain that soothes us in suffering and challenges complacency. Soul flowers in this rain of the worlds, of meteor showers, of the cosmos. [3]

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Hillsong’s Joel Houston Clarifies Evolution Views After Sparking Debate With Worship Song ‘So Will I’

By Jeannie Ortega Law, Christian Post Reporter Friday, June 29, 2018

With one of Hillsong United’s latest hits, “So Will I (100 Billion X),” at the center of a creation versus evolution debate, worship leader Joel Houston is setting the record straight on where he stands.

“So Will I (100 Billion X)” is a song off of the album, There Is More, recorded live at ‪the Hillsong Worship and Creative Conference in Sydney, Australia. Houston was recently asked on Twitter why the song mentions evolution.

The lyrics in question are: “And as You speak/A hundred billion creatures catch Your breath/Evolving in pursuit of what You said.”

Houston, who is the eldest son of Hillsong Church’s founders as well as lead musician in the worship band Hillsong United and worship leader of Hillsong Church in New York City, responded by saying:

“Evolution is undeniable—created by God as a reflective means of displaying nature’s pattern of renewal in pursuance of God’s Word—an ode to the nature of the creative God it reflects—and only ever in part—not the SOURCE! Science and faith aren’t at odds. God created the Big-Bang.”

His response sparked a Twitter debate on evolution versus creation and drew some backlash. In back-and-forth exchanges with various Twitter users, Houston went on to offer some context to his earlier tweet.

He wrote: “Context—things evolve, they change and adapt, I DON’T believe in evolution as a theory of SOURCE, I believe it’s merely a pattern of nature—created by God, reflecting Nature’s desire for renewal, survival, new life—something-SomeONE—Like God.”

He also said: “I think what gets lost, strangely enough, is that in any case, The Word, comes before any kind of Big Bang.. ‘let there be light’!! BOOM!! And there WAS!!! 

When asked if he believes in the “Big Bang theory” or “literal 6 day creation,” Houston said, “It means I believe God created everything and His Word cane first..”

He further clarified his beliefs on whether man evolved from an ape, saying, “i believe God created humanity out of the dust.. and breathed his breath/Spirit into us..”

The popular worship leader admitted that when writing the song, the band was “aware of the implications ‘evolving’ would serve as a conflicting adjective for some” but said they still felt “it was worth it—if just a foolish desire to enlarge our thinking of a God who was-is-&-is to come, making all things new, ‘from-Him, through-Him, To-Him.'” 

He explained that God is “way bigger than we think,” and regardless of one’s theological or scientific beliefs, He “is undiminished by our limitations.”

“If God’s creative process was an easy working week, or finely crafted over six-ages of millennia, does it make Him any more or less God?” Houston posed. “Or us any more or less created in His image? Either way, it was an unfathomably wonderful six-day process, however you think to see it.”

He added, “The way I see it—the NATURE of a fallen-world evolves in-decay BECAUSE of our best attempts to adapt to a—’survival of the fittest’ kind of existence—yet God, fully reveals His NATURE in-and-through JESUS, who embodied ours, and showed us a DIFFERENT way. Spirit & Flesh.”

The millennial worshiper went on to break down the structure of the song to help critics understand the development of the lyrics. He maintained they couldn’t sing of or understand God’s promises (in second verse) without the premise of the first verse (God of Creation). “Nor can we fully comprehend the reconciling power of the third-verse (God of SALVATION), without the tension in the middle.”

“The entire premise of ‘So Will I’, is the redemptive, creative, authority & power of God’s Word. That at the end of the day, all our best theories, ideas, dogmas & best attempts at understanding, will ultimately surrender to the ‘Word at the beginning,'” he concluded.

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