In her letter “Earth Hope,” Ghanaian theologian Mercy Oduyoye calls on future generations to encounter the reality of the earth and our place in it.

The long and short of all this is that if we want to live long, and have a healthy earth with healthy waters, we have to stop being self-centered. Life is stronger than us but life is also fragile and vulnerable in human hands. We are greedy and inconsiderate and so degrade the earth, the waters, and other human beings. If we are to leave a beautiful world for you and your grandchildren, we have to take seriously the fact that creation does not belong to us; we are part of creation. We cannot do what we like with earth, water, and other human beings. God expects us to keep the earth in good condition. The earth takes care of us and we have to take care of the earth and of each other.…

The spirit of God the Creator has been with us and we are all fired up like the disciples at Pentecost. We shall go out to tell others that another world is possible. I hope you will also tell all your playmates, classmates, and schoolmates that a possible world of beauty is in sight. [1]

Theologian Larry Rasmussen writes letters to his grandchildren, reflecting upon wonder, beauty, and our planet’s future: 

Did you know that before your generation, no humans of any stripe ever lived on a planet as hot as this one?…

Still, the world has not stopped being beautiful. You will remember our days on the red rock mesas of New Mexico, “this beautiful broken country of erosional beauty where rocks tell time differently and the wing beats of ravens come to us as prayers.” [2] You’ll remember our adobe-style house, too, and many patio hours sketching with colored chalk or doing a puzzle together. You may also remember dark skies of bright stars, even here in town, and the blue and pink stripes on the horizon at dawn.

I guess the Greeks had it right. Their word cosmos means “order”—those stars in their courses—and it also means “beauty,” as in cosmetics, though cosmetics is a bit trivial for the life and death of a hundred billion galaxies! Or for a striped dawn.

Cosmos as beauty and order belongs to life, [grandson], so go Greek and claim the beauty that exists. Let it guide you. Beauty is its own resistance, contending with all that is ugly and chaotic.…

If the tumultuous world has not stopped being beautiful, neither has love stopped being love: “Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy.” [3] That’s my latest most favorite author, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and she’s right: if we choose joy over despair and love over hate, it’s because Earth offers love and joy daily. [4]

After arriving at Elisha’s house, Naaman was furious for two reasons. First, the prophet had shamed Naaman by not personally greeting him. Instead, Elisha sent one of his servants to greet the “great man” from Syria and give him the instructions for healing his leprosy. And that was the second reason for Naaman’s anger.Elisha’s messenger told Naaman to wash himself in the Jordan River seven times. It was a shockingly simple procedure; nothing like the elaborate healing rituals demanded by the pagan gods of Naaman’s homeland. And there was nothing particularly special about the Jordan either. As Naaman noted, the rivers back in Syria were much more impressive. Therefore “he turned and went off in a rage” (2 Kings 5:12).Naaman’s pagan religion had taught him that asking a deity for an extraordinary request required an extraordinary ritual. He believed that the power of the gods was only accessed through sacred experiences, in sacred locations, and mediated by sacred priests. But Elisha was deliberately challenging Naaman’s pagan expectations. First, by refusing to even meet with him, the prophet was ensuring Naaman did not think Elisha possessed any control over Israel’s God. Now, with these uncomplicated instructions, he was showing that Israel’s God would not be manipulated by human rituals. Naaman was having his trust in both religious experts and religious experiences deconstructed.It’s remarkable how little has changed over 3,000 years. Every time we expect to encounter God at a massive, highly-produced worship event, or by traveling to some sacred retreat or conference, we are showing that Naaman’s pagan proclivities are still prevalent today. Many of us carry the assumption that to really know God’s presence and power, we must escape from our ordinary circumstances. We must metaphorically—and sometimes literally—climb a mountain. We need to surround ourselves with hundreds or thousands of others in a space made sacred through amplified music, theater lighting, and projected graphics. And when that “mountaintop” experience no longer gives us the spiritual high we seek, we’ll find another even louder and higher experience.Of course, even when these experiences do meet our emotional expectations we are still left wondering—We’re my feelings really the result of encountering God and his Spirit, or were they just the neurological byproduct of a meticulously controlled environment?Elisha wanted Naaman to have no doubts about who and what was responsible for his healing. So, rather than finding God’s power through elaborate religious experiences, he told Naaman to seek God in the mundane. Perhaps we should too. DAILY SCRIPTURE JOHN 4:19-24  2 KINGS 5:1-27 WEEKLY PRAYER Benedict of Nursia (480 – 543)Almighty God, give us wisdom to perceive you, intellect to understand you, diligence to seek you, patience to wait for you, eyes to behold you, a heart to meditate upon you, and life to proclaim you, through the power of the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

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