{"id":18880,"date":"2020-05-19T09:32:59","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T13:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18880"},"modified":"2020-05-19T09:32:59","modified_gmt":"2020-05-19T13:32:59","slug":"cultivation-not-domination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=18880","title":{"rendered":"Cultivation Not Domination"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Franciscan Ecological Wisdom<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Cultivation\nNot Domination<\/strong><br>\nTuesday, \u202fMay 19, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jhnJXDGfPiE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p>St. Bonaventure (1221\u20131274) taught that \u201cChrist, as a\nhuman being, shares with all creatures; indeed he possesses being with rocks,\nlives among the plants, senses with animals, and understands with angels.\u201d [1]\nIn saying this, Bonaventure wanted to give theological weight to the deep\nexperience of St. Francis of Assisi (1181\u20131226), who as far as we know, was the\nfirst recorded Christian to call animals and elements and even the forces of\nnature by familial names: \u201cSister Mother Earth,\u201d \u201cBrother Wind,\u201d \u201cSister\nWater,\u201d and \u201cBrother Fire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\ncannot jump over this world, or its woundedness, and still try to love God. We\nmust love God <em>through, in,\nwith, <\/em>and even <em>because of <\/em>this world. This is the message Christianity was supposed\nto initiate, proclaim, and encourage, and what Jesus modeled. We were made to\nlove and trust this world, \u201cto cultivate it and take care of it\u201d (Genesis\n2:15), but for some sad reason we preferred to emphasize the statement earlier\nin Genesis, which seems to say that we should \u201cdominate\u201d the earth\n(1:28).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although\nGod \u201cempties himself\u201d into creation (Philippians 2:7), we humans have spent\nmost of history creating systems to control and subdue that creation for our\nown purposes and profit, reversing the divine pattern.&nbsp; As Paul Swanson,\nco-host of my podcast <em>Another Name for\nEvery Thing<\/em>, puts it, \u201cThe\n[Franciscan mystics] are known for their celebrated connection\nto&nbsp;being&nbsp;a part of nature and this world as a mirror to which we pass\nover to God. There\u2019s such a naturalness to this perspective, yet the bulk of\nChristianity has seemed to pay no mind to this at all with the theology of\ndomination over the planet.\u201d [2]&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Franciscan\nsister and scientist Ilia Delio writes that Francis modeled a way of relating\nto creation with inherent dignity and equality rather than domination:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[Francis] did\nnot consider himself at the top of a hierarchy of being nor did he declare\nhimself superior to the non-human creation. Rather, Francis saw himself as part\nof creation. His spirituality overturned the spirituality of hierarchical\nascent and replaced it with a spirituality of descending solidarity between\nhumanity and all of creation. [3] . . . He found God in all creatures and\nidentified with them as brother and sister . . . \u201cbecause he knew they shared\nwith him the same beginning.\u201d [4] By surrendering himself and daring everything\nfor love\u2019s sake, the earth became his home and all creatures his brothers and\nsisters. That led him to love and respect the world around him and made him\ntruly a man of peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Only prayer, the\nSpirit of God breathing in us, dwelling in our hearts and joining us to Christ,\ncan lead us, like Francis, to the contemplative vision of God\u2019s goodness in\nevery creature and in every living thing. . . . The God within us is the God\nwho permeates every aspect of our world\u2014the One who is the source and goal of\ncreation. [5]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Franciscan Ecological Wisdom Cultivation Not Domination Tuesday, \u202fMay 19, 2020 St. Bonaventure (1221\u20131274) taught that \u201cChrist, as a human being, shares with all creatures; indeed he possesses being with rocks, lives among the plants, senses with animals, and understands with angels.\u201d [1] In saying this, Bonaventure wanted to give theological weight to the deep experience [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18880"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18880"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18882,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18880\/revisions\/18882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}