Earth Day
Honoring the Soul of the World
It has been an unseasonably warm winter here in Utah. But last week, my yellow daffodils bowed patiently beneath an inch-thick layer of spring snow. I had the urge to go out and prop them up and whisper to them, telling them not to give up—that the sun would show up in the morning to melt the snow so they could stand tall again. Seeing the bent shape of them hold the press of the heavy white blanket, I felt the strange sensation that they had a soul, these tiny flowers I had watched push through the dirt, stretching their arms to the heavens like I sometimes do. Richard Rohr teaches that “when we love something, we grant it soul, we see its soul, and we let its soul touch ours.”
Each April, Earth Day gives us an opportunity to pause and reflect on the living world that surrounds and sustains us and ask how we can better honor and care for it—how we can let its soul touch ours. Here, we have collected five essays that take up this question from distinct perspectives.
In “Toads Returned,” Mike Maxwell argues that caring for the world is an act of Christian discipleship, recounting the way he has allowed his yard to thrive as its own vibrant ecosystem by curating a naturally healthy environment for native species. In “To Hold Our Inheritances,” Becky Wilson examines the beneficial and detrimental effects of social and natural forces on our landscapes, using the decay of the Great Salt Lake as an example, and offers ways to take responsibility in both stewarding the earth and allowing it to steward us. In “Redeeming Natural Theology,” Rachel Meibos Helps and Steven L. Peck read the natural world’s excess of beauty as evidence of a God who values beauty for its own sake. In “The Wounded Heart of Utah Valley,” Max Perry Mueller tells the story of Utah Lake, which was once the sacred gathering place of the Timpanogos. And in “Loving Our Sacred Home,” Ben Abbott sees Earth not as a storehouse of resources but as a conscious, sacred being to which all of creation is inseparably connected through love.
We hope each of these essays will help deepen your commitment to love and care for your own corners of the world, and recognize the way the earth cares for you in return. Happy Earth Day!