Life Meets Faith: The way it is supposed to be

My last two columns have suggested that the human inhabitants of planet Earth are in very serious trouble. I realize that my saying this can diminish our chances of enjoying that Friday afternoon beer on campus that I've enjoyed myself whenever I could get it. Nevertheless, "buzz kill" or not, the possibility of losing this paradise in which we live is very real.

Even as we speak large parts of the world are recovering from catastrophic floods, experiencing them, or are threatened by them (in southern Manitoba for example). In other words, the extreme weather conditions forecasted by those who saw global warming coming are here. Last weekend, around the corner from where I live, a small fishing village was pounded by unusually strong tides and ocean waves. I went to take a look and saw many timbers from the wharf floating among the waves. Property owners had heavy equipment on standby to build more barricades.

The melting of polar ice is no longer reported with overtones of alarm, as I think it should be. Instead, we are accepting it, calmly discussing how Canada is going to maintain its sovereignty over the Northwest Passage.

Last week I said that without a new vision, a religious shift in our understanding, we remain in danger of losing our home. The modern vision of relentless consumption of the planet is probably going to leave us with pockets of temporary wealth in a growing sea of human misery. And eventually, like waves that carry away wharf timbers, that sea will unmoor our islands of security.

It was not meant to be this way. The Christian Bible opens with a vision for living on the planet that shows the way to a sustainable, and even thriving, future.

In that opening vision the first human beings are named Adam and Eve. It is worth considering the name Adam. This is a Hebrew word, since that part of the Bible is written in Hebrew. It is often translated "Man." What I want to point out about this name is its relation to another word, the word for "Earth." The Hebrew word for Earth is Adama.

Thus, the word for Man can best be understood as "of the Earth." In fact, one of the pictures of the creation in those first pages of the Bible has God sculpting the figure of man from the soil. God then breathes his breath, his spirit, into the figure, giving it life.

This seemingly small item, the relationship between the word for Man and the word for Earth, is something of great importance for all people. We are all of the Earth. We are connected to it.

In those opening pages, indeed, Adam is not a disembodied figure, doing to the Earth whatever he pleases. He tills the ground. He is a co-creator with God, bringing forth from the earth its potential to feed, clothe and sustain human life. From the emergence of the human race, God has been calling us to love this home, to make it a place of fruitfulness and beauty, a place where not just we ourselves, but all future generations will be able to live in peace.

It goes without saying that the truth of our existence is far removed from this incredible calling. Nevertheless, the calling rings forth.

Without hearing this call human kind can certainly lose its way - especially with countless diversionary voices summoning us to look out for number one, to elbow our way through life without regard for our neighbour, and to take whatever we can from this good earth without taking into account our capacity for destruction.

What I am saying is that there is a way forward towards the way it is supposed to be. It begins with a new vision of our relationship to the Earth, a vision that has a claim on the imaginations, thoughts, words and actions of each one of us.

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