Looking and Listening
Father Richard Rohr describes how creation-centered spirituality opens us to a deeper connection to God:
Creation spirituality reveals our human arrogance, and maybe that’s why we are afraid of it. Maybe that’s why we’re afraid to believe that God has spoken to us primarily through what is. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) was basically a hermit. He lived in the middle of nature. If we want nature to come to life for us, we have to live in the middle of it for a while. When we get away from the voices of human beings, then we really start hearing the voices of animals and trees. They start talking to us, as it were. And we start talking back. Foundational faith, I would call it—the grounding for personal and biblical faith.
I have been blessed to spend several Lents living as a hermit in nature. When we get rid of our devices and all the usual reference points, it is amazing how real and compelling light and darkness become. It’s amazing how real animals become. It’s amazing how much we notice about what’s happening in a tree each day. It’s almost as if we weren’t seeing it all before, and we wonder if we have ever seen at all. I don’t think that Western civilization realizes what a high price we pay for separating ourselves from the natural world. One of the prices is certainly a lack of a sort of natural contemplation, a natural seeing. My times in the hermitage re-situated me in God’s universe, in God’s providence and plan. I had a feeling of being realigned with what is. I belonged and was thereby saved!
So, creation spirituality is, first of all, the natural spirituality of people who have learned how to see. I am beginning to think that much of institutional religion is rather useless if it is not grounded in natural seeing and nature religion.
We probably don’t communicate with something unless we have already experienced its communications to us. I know by the third week at my hermitage I was talking to lizards on my porch, and I have no doubt that somehow some communion was happening. I don’t know how to explain it beyond that. I was reattached, and they were reattached.
When we are at peace, when we are not fighting it, when we are not fixing and controlling this world, when we are not filled with anger, all we can do is start loving and forgiving. Nothing else makes sense when we are alone with God. All we can do is let go. There’s nothing worth holding on to, because there is nothing else we need. It’s in that free space, I think, that realignment happens. Francis lived out of such realignment. And I think it is the realignment that he announced to the world in the form of worship and adoration of God through nature.
Childlike Trust
Theologian Howard Thurman (1899–1981) shares the sacred connection to nature he first experienced as a child:
When I was young, I found more companionship in nature than I did among people….
Nightfall was meaningful to my childhood, for the night was more than a companion. It was a presence, an articulate climate. There was something about the night that seemed to cover my spirit like a gentle blanket. The nights in Florida, as I grew up … were not dark, they were black. When there was no moon, the stars hung like lanterns, so close I felt that one could reach up and pluck them from the heavens. The night had its own language…. This comforted me and I found myself wishing that the night would hurry and come, for under its cover, my mind would roam. I felt embraced, enveloped, held secure. In some fantastic way, the night belonged to me. All the little secrets of my life and heart and all of my most intimate and private thoughts would not be violated, I knew, if I spread them out before me in the night. When things went badly during the day, I would sort them out in the dark as I lay in my bed, cradled by the night sky….
The ocean and the river befriended me when I was a child…. Often, when the tide was low … [there was] more than a mile of packed sand…. Here I found, alone, a special benediction. The ocean and the night together surrounded my little life with a reassurance that could not be affronted by the behavior of human beings. The ocean at night gave me a sense of timelessness, of existing beyond the reach of the ebb and flow of circumstances. Death would be a minor thing, I felt, in the sweep of that natural embrace.
Even the storms in Florida where Thurman grew up did not provoke fear:
When the storms blew, the branches of the large oak tree in our backyard would snap and fall. But the topmost branches of the oak tree would sway, giving way just enough to save themselves from snapping loose. I needed the strength of that tree, and, like it, I wanted to hold my ground. Eventually, I discovered that the oak tree and I had a unique relationship. I could sit, my back against its trunk, and feel the same peace that would come to me in my bed at night. I could reach down in the quiet places of my spirit, take out my bruises and my joys, unfold them, and talk about them. I could talk aloud to the oak tree and know that I was understood. It, too, was a part of my reality, like the woods, the night, and the pounding surf, my earliest companions, giving me space.
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| Psalm 110: When the Bible Quotes the Bible |
 Click Here for AudioThe Bible is a very large book. That’s not technically accurate. The Bible is a collection of 66 books, and many of those books reference other books. It is almost like the biblical authors are in communication with each other across the centuries by reading, interpreting, applying, and sometimes reappropriating earlier biblical books. For this reason, one of the best ways to understand the Bible is to allow the Bible to interpret itself.For example, by itself, Psalm 110 is a very odd and even confusing chapter. In it, King David refers to YHWH speaking to “my Lord” (verse 1). David was God’s anointed ruler over Israel, so who is this elevated person David identifies as his King but also distinct from YHWH? And later, Psalm 110 plucks an obscure reference from Genesis and says this King who is higher than David is “a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.” It’s all very strange.That is, until we get to the New Testament where we discover Psalm 110 is the Old Testament passage most frequently quoted by Jesus, his Apostles, and the early church. They interpret Psalm 110 as a prophetic messianic text that anticipated Jesus. It’s a remarkable case of the Bible interpreting the Bible.First, Jesus uses Psalm 110 in a theological debate with the religious leaders. They expected the Messiah to be David’s son and royal heir but rejected the idea of the Messiah being divine. But Jesus challenged this by quoting Psalm 110:1. “If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how is he his son?” Jesus’ point is simple. In that patriarchal culture, a child cannot have a higher status than his own father. Therefore, the messianic figure David calls “Lord” cannot merely be his descendent, but something more.But it goes even further. In Psalm 110:1, YHWH invites David’s “Lord” to “Sit at my right hand.” Again, this is deeply messianic imagery that is repeated all over the New Testament. We are told that after the resurrection, Jesus ascended into the heavens and took up his authority by sitting at the Father’s right hand (see 1 Peter 3:22; Hebrews 1:3, 10:12, 12:2). And Peter quotes Psalm 110 directly in his sermon to the crowds in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (see Acts 2:34-35). In fact, every time the New Testament speaks of Jesus’ enthronement, ascension, or sitting down at the hand of God the Father, it’s a reference to Psalm 110:1.And I’m just scratching the surface. Allusions to Psalm 110 continue throughout the book of Acts, the gospel of Luke, 1 Corinthians 15, and the part about Melchizedek in Psalm 110:4 inspired an entire chapter in the book of Hebrews (see Hebrews 7).Psalm 110 is a reminder that we need to do more than just read the Bible. We also need to let the Bible read the Bible. The biblical authors are in dialogue with each other, and texts from one part of Scripture may be quoted and illuminated by another in extraordinary ways—and all of it is intended to help us see God and his Son, Jesus Christ.DAILY SCRIPTUREPSALM 110:1-7MATTHEW 22:41-46WEEKLY PRAYERAugustine of Hippo (354 – 430)Lord Jesus, our Savior, let us now come to you: Our hearts are cold; Lord, warm them with your selfless love. Our hearts are sinful; cleanse them with your precious blood. Our hearts are weak; strengthen them with your joyous Spirit. Our hearts are empty; fill them with your divine presence. Lord Jesus, our hearts are yours; possess them always and only for yourself. Amen. |
