Preparing for trip with book on Franciscan Ecology

Next Tuesday I am starting a month long road trip nature adventure that will bring me across Canada, into Montana, through Chicago, back to Syracuse, and on to Boston.  The two most important things to consider when going on a trip like this is what music to bring and what books to pack.  With this in mind I went to that great used bookstore on James Street (you know the one) and bought a few books.  I thought it would be appropriate for my first trip to the west to read something that would teach me about the land and its people or help to make my experience one of spiritual development.  I bought three books.  "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," "The Imitation of Christ," and "Care for Creation."  I've begun reading the last of the three and I want to tell you a little about it.

"Care for Creation: a franciscan spirituality of the earth," written by Ilia Delio, Keith Warner, and Pamela Wood is shelved in the religion section.  It is really a book about connecting science, religion, and meditation in order to better understand, love, and protect the Earth.  I have liked the Franciscans since I first learned about them while studying Medieval History in college.  They are the inheritors of a catholic tradition started by St. Francis around a thousand years ago.  If his name sounds familiar, it's because he is probably the most popular saint in history (the only real contender being Santa Claus, if you count him).  St. Francis is the saint represented in the all the sculptures of the monk surrounded by birds.  It is said that he used to preach to animals and he even wrote a beautiful prayer about nature and wildlife called "Canticle of the Creatures."  "Care for Creation" is written in sections divided into science, religion, and meditations.  I have a hard time expressing my own religious beliefs (or understanding them myself), but I really connected with what the authors wrote about the world as God's creation and what our role in that might be.  I underlined some of my favorite passages from the first part of the book, and I want to share some with you.  Maybe after reading them you will also better understand the purpose of my artwork.

"...just as the Word is the inner self-expression of God, the created order is the external expression of the inner Word... Creation is an external "word" of God.  This finite "word" of God is the one eternal Word expressed in time and history.  Creation therefore is the "speech" of God." p43

"As God expresses himself in creation, creation, in turn, expresses the Creator.  We can compare the manifold variety of things in creation to the stained-glass windows of the great cathedral.  Just as light strikes the various panes of glass and diffracts into an array of colors, so too the divine light emanates through the Word and diffracts in the universe, producing a myriad of "colors" expressing in a myriad of things, all reflecting the divine light in some way." p43

"Only when we know the source of our lives can we know the truth of our lives-that we and all creation come from God and belong to God.  We are not created to wield power over others but to join with others, including the created world, in the praise of God." p48

"When we lose sight of the uniqueness of created being then things become "its," objects of manipulation and control, only to be given value or life by the one who controls or manipulates it.  When things lose their intrinsic goodness and become lifeless objects, they lose their distinct place in nature or creation." p52

"Without the human person to give voice to creation, to celebrate its giftedness and sacredness, creation becomes mute and vulnerable to manipulation.  The key to creation's holiness, therefore, is in human identity-who we are in our Creator, the Trinity of divine love... However, if God is dead in us, then we are dead to the deeper meaning of creation as well." p52

In the meditation section the authors ask you to consider certain questions.  I will end this post with the one I liked best:

"How do you usually identify yourself?  Are there times you forget your true identity and live out of a more narrow sense of self?  Can you think of times when you have lived out of a sense of self that was connected to God and the world as sacred?  What factors contributed to each?"