Listening to Creation
The experience of being lost and the experience of losing something or someone precious is different. We all have our own stories to tell of the experience of being lost; be it in the middle of an Australian forest or lost in an unfamiliar city with unforgiving traffic blaring out its impatience. It is an awful feeling being lost. Worse than being lost is the experience of losing a precious something or someone. Even as you remember the moment of loss the gut contracts and breathless anxiety may take over the breathing and the thinking.
Why is it that losing something or someone precious has us on our knees? The experience of loss evokes a sensation of helplessness and vulnerability. We push away shadow experiences of helplessness and vulnerability, yet this is where our growth lies. In her book, An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor makes a strong case for these virtues of helplessness and vulnerability. She argues that lostness makes us “stronger at the edges and softer at the centre.” Lostness teaches us about vulnerability. About empathy. About humility. About patience. Lostness shows us who we really are, and who God really is.
The three stories of being lost and found are unique to the Gospel of Luke but utterly precious in our Christian proclamation on the nature of God’s grace. What I notice about the three lost and found parables within the one chapter of Luke is that they seem to offer three different responses to the experience of losing what is precious. The first two stories show people actively in search of what was lost. The shepherd searches for the sheep in a wide arc. The householder pays close attention to detail in her search. The third parable, the story of the prodigal son, there is no searching at all. Instead, the father “holds space” in a constant attitude of welcome embrace in the hope that his son returns.
We may misread the parables. We may be tempted to think of the lost lamb and the lost coin as representing “sinners” “out there” or those that do not belong. This is not how the parable reads. The lost lamb in the first parable belonged to the shepherd’s flock. The coin in the second parable belongs to the woman before she lost it. Both the lamb and the coin belonged from the very beginning of the story; thus, these parables are not about welcoming the lost and least who are beyond us. These parables are not about evangelical zeal or winning converts. Instead, these are parables about lostness and leastness on the inside. God is not found in the fold with the 99 sheep. God is not in the house comfortably polishing the 9 coins. God is where the lost are.
The season of creation 2022 is about listening to the voice of creation. As I listen to the voice of creation singing within this parable creation asks: What creatures and elements of Creation have we ignored and need to restore to the circle of our concern? What parts of creation were part of us that we have pushed away?
At the level of the individual self, we have overemphasised rationality and intellectual output, pushing away signals from our body to rest and recover. Like the lost sheep sidelined from the flock, the needs of our body have been sidelined.
At the level of community, we value that which can be monetised. Nature, trees, insects, streams and rivers, and other parts of creation that do not make a profit are abused not protected. We are reminded in Laudato Si that Creation has “an intrinsic value” which is “independent of [its] usefulness. Each organism, as a creature of God, is good and admirable in itself.” (#140). When we abuse God’s wonderful creation, we hurt ourselves. In Laudato si, Pope Francis says “The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot adequately combat environmental degradation unless we attend to causes related to human and social degradation. In fact, the deterioration of the environment and of society affects the most vulnerable people on the planet… The impact of present imbalances is also seen in the premature death of many of the poor.” (#48)
In Laudato Si’ (220), Pope Francis shares the attitudes and changes within us that can result from undergoing an ecological conversion during this season of creation:
· gratitude and gratuitousness (recognition that the world is God’s loving gift)
· generosity in self-sacrifice and good works
· a loving awareness of a universal communion with the rest of creation
· greater creativity and enthusiasm in resolving the world’s problems
· a feeling of responsibility based on faith
Jesus invited people to imagine a world where God reigns, and then to act accordingly. He lived the message that he proclaimed. If we imagine a world where God reigns and live into that future, it might sound something like the letter to the future written by Gamilaraay astronomer Karlie Noon and Kamilaroi astrophysicist Krystal de Napoli in their book Astronomy: Sky Country: “The year is 2044 and Country has never been healthier. There is more fish than plastic in the ocean, bushfires have been mitigated by right burns, and the skies are dark because of smart lights, helping people rest and nocturnal animals go about their business and the birds return. ‘Earth is now a place where knowledge is respected regardless of the race or qualifications’ of the knowledge holders. Everyone has become a custodian of Country, working alongside the Creator. There is new life to come.” May it come true.
Desiree Snyman