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!
Toads Returned
The Lord my pasture will prepare And feed me with a shepherd’s care. His presence will my want supply And guard me with a watchful eye. My noonday walks he will attend And all my silent midnight hours defend. When in the sultry glebe I faint, Or on the thirsty mountain pant, To fertile vales and dewy meads My weary, wand’ring steps he leads, Where peace…
To Hold Our Inheritances
Former president of the American Academy of Religion, Dr. Mayra Rivera, stated in her presidential address that in recent years record-breaking climate disasters have become so commonplace the meaning of “unprecedented” has eroded. As she listed diverse catastrophes, I thought about one ecological crisis close to my heart: the shrinking of the Great Sal…
Redeeming Natural Theology
Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these (Luke 12:27).
The Wounded Heart of Utah Valley
Ute Leader Wakara was in high spirits when he stepped out of his lodge and into the warm sunlight in late spring of 1847. His belly was full. His signature bespoke suit of rich broadcloth, cut in the European fashion, stretched tight over his frame.
Loving Our Sacred Home
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. -