The World Through Which We Travel

The World Through Which We Travel — Relationship with Creation and the Universe

I grew up on a farm.

You might think that would have given me a deep appreciation for creation.

It didn’t.

At least not in the way I understand creation today.

I knew parts of creation very well. I knew land, crops, animals, weather, planting, and harvesting. But much of my relationship with the natural world was based on one question:

What is it useful for?

Dogs stayed outside. They were useful for hunting and protection.

Cows gave us milk and provided food.

Chickens gave us eggs and meat.

Pigs provided meat.

Land was something to farm.

Plants were something to grow.

Trees, streams, soil, and air were simply part of the world around me.

There were benefits.

I didn’t think very much about responsibilities.

I certainly didn’t think about having a relationship with creation.

I thought creation was something God had given humanity to use.

It took me a long time to begin understanding something different.

I am not standing outside creation. I am part of it.

That realization began changing many things.

Some of that change happened while I lived in Denver.

My friend Frank introduced me to some Native American perspectives about life and creation. I encountered ways of thinking about the natural world that were different from those with which I had grown up.

I didn’t simply exchange one set of beliefs for another.

I began asking questions.

What does it mean to respect creation?

What does it mean to live as part of an interconnected world?

Does the earth simply belong to us to use however we choose?

Or have we been entrusted with its care?

Other people in Denver expanded my world in different ways.

Spending time with Terry and Darlene, David and Glen introduced me to experiences that had not been a large part of my life before.

Concerts.

Neighborhood cafés and bars.

Music.

Laughter.

Friendship.

Simply enjoying life together.

Much of my earlier life had centered around church. Denver helped me discover that beauty, joy, friendship, creativity, and laughter didn’t have to occur inside a church building to have value.

I began discovering a much larger world.

And then there was Marlowe.

I adopted Marlowe while I lived in Denver. He was half Labrador retriever and half greyhound.

He had the head of a Lab and the body—and speed—of a greyhound.

And he was a loving, affectionate companion.

Technically, I was supposed to walk Marlowe.

Most of the time, Marlowe walked me.

I lived in an apartment toward the back of the building, and I had to walk down a long interior hallway to reach it. Somehow, Marlowe knew when I was coming.

Especially, perhaps, if chicken nuggets were involved.

When I reached the door, he would be waiting.

He would jump up and down, stand on his hind legs, put his front paws on my shoulders, wag his tail, and greet me with plenty of sloppy dog kisses.

Marlowe didn’t produce milk.

He didn’t give me eggs.

I wasn’t raising him for meat.

His value wasn’t determined by what I could get from him.

He was Marlowe.

He was my companion.

And somewhere along the way, an animal stopped being merely something useful and became another living creature with whom I shared part of my journey.

Creation was teaching me something.

Then there were the Rocky Mountains.

Red Rocks.

Rocky Mountain National Park.

Elk.

Moose.

Trees and vegetation.

Mountain streams.

Rock formations.

The enormous Colorado sky.

Standing in the presence of all that beauty and majesty, the question wasn’t:

What can I do with this?

The question became:

How could I not see God?

The Psalmist wrote:

“The heavens declare the glory of God.”

I began to understand that.

Creation didn’t have to be useful to me in order to have value.

A mountain doesn’t have to produce anything for me.

Neither does an elk.

Neither does a tree.

Neither does a stream.

Neither does a sunset.

And neither does a painting, a poem, a play, or a piece of music.

That was another area in which I had much to learn.

I have always loved reading, especially history and theology. But for much of my life I had little appreciation for other forms of human creativity.

I could walk through an art museum and think, That’s nice, without really considering the imagination and gift behind what I was seeing.

I didn’t appreciate Shakespeare.

I didn’t understand artists such as Dalí or Picasso.

Music didn’t speak to me in the way it does today.

I am learning to pay attention.

I don’t have to like every painting.

I don’t have to understand every poem.

I don’t have to enjoy every kind of music.

But I can ask:

What did this person see?

What were they trying to express?

What gift allowed them to create something that didn’t exist before?

Human creativity is part of this world through which we travel, too.

And all of this eventually brought me back to the beginning of Sacred Writings.

Genesis says that God looked upon creation and called it good.

That changed something important in my theology.

Growing up, I heard a great deal about being a sinner. At times the message seemed to be that we were dirty, rotten sinners headed for hell unless God rescued us.

I no longer begin there.

I begin with:

Creation is good.

And I am part of creation.

That doesn’t mean everything I do is good.

Human beings can hurt one another.

We can make terrible choices.

We can damage ourselves.

We can exploit animals.

We can poison water.

We can pollute air.

We can destroy land.

We can distort relationships.

Sin is real.

But sin doesn’t erase the first declaration:

God called creation good.

For me, redemption means something very different when I begin there.

What has been damaged is worth restoring.

What has been wounded is worth healing.

What has been broken is worth reconciling.

Why?

Because God is love.

And God’s creation is worth loving.

That has also changed the way I understand some of the religious language of my childhood.

We used to sing:

This world is not my home; I’m just passing through.

We also sang I’ll Fly Away.

I understand what those songs were trying to express.

I have not rejected belief in heaven, eternal life, or the reality of judgment.

But I no longer want to live as though the Christian goal is simply to escape this world.

Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God.

I believe that Kingdom is already present among us, even though its fullness is still to come.

It is here.

In my heart.

In my life.

In the way I love.

In the way I treat my neighbor.

In the choices I make.

In the way I care for the world around me.

Whatever lies beyond this life remains ahead.

But until then, this is my home.

And I have a responsibility to care for it.

That is where I have come to understand stewardship.

A steward isn’t the absolute owner.

A steward receives something valuable and is entrusted with its care.

The soil isn’t simply something from which I extract as much as possible.

Water isn’t something I can pollute because it flows away from me.

Air isn’t someone else’s responsibility.

Animals aren’t valuable only when they are useful to human beings.

Creation has value beyond what I can take from it.

And stewardship extends beyond me.

There are other people sharing this home.

There will be generations who come after me.

How I treat the land, water, air, animals, and resources of this earth affects my neighbors—including neighbors I will never meet.

So creation care becomes part of loving my neighbor.

That brings all three relationship paths together.

The Sacred Journey asks how I relate to God.

Traveling Companions asks how I relate to myself and the people who share the road with me.

The World Through Which We Travel asks how I relate to the creation of which all of us are a part.

These relationships are interdependent.

I cannot claim to love the Creator while treating creation as worthless.

I cannot claim to love my neighbor while ignoring what my choices do to the world my neighbor depends upon.

And I cannot understand myself fully without recognizing that I, too, belong to creation.

I am still learning this.

I am certainly no expert gardener. My record with houseplants will testify to that.

But perhaps stewardship begins before expertise.

Perhaps it begins with learning to see.

I spent much of my life looking at creation.

I am learning to see it.

To see value instead of merely usefulness.

To see relationship instead of merely ownership.

To see responsibility instead of merely benefit.

To see beauty.

To experience wonder.

To stand before a mountain, hear a piece of music, look into the eyes of an animal, watch a sunset, listen to laughter around a table, or encounter something another human being has created and simply be grateful that it exists.

That is why I call this category The World Through Which We Travel.

Yes, I am a pilgrim.

I believe there is more beyond the horizon.

But being a pilgrim doesn’t give me permission to neglect the road beneath my feet.

I don’t throw my trash beside the trail simply because I am headed somewhere else.

I don’t destroy the shelter because I am only staying for the night.

I don’t mistreat the creatures sharing the road because they aren’t my destination.

I want to leave the road better for the pilgrims who come behind me.

This world is the home I have been given for this part of the journey.

Creation is good.

I am part of it.

And while I am here, I want to learn to love it, enjoy it, wonder at it, and care for it.

Because sometimes I look at the world through which I travel and find myself asking:

How could I not see God?

The Curious Pilgrim