How does our relationship with Earth affect our spirituality? How does our spirituality affect our relationship with Earth?
Posted on June 24, 2024, by Loretto Community
But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Job 12:7-8, 10
In [God’s] hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.
Earth as teacher. That’s what immediately comes to mind when I reflect on how I experience the relationship between spirituality and nature.
Here is one of many life lessons taught to me during the years I lived in Latin America. My teacher in this case was a plant hanging in a basket above the dirt floor of my porch.
A fungus was ruining one of my hanging plants so I trimmed it back, not paying attention to the stems that fell to the ground. A week or two later, I was watering the still-sickly plant when something bright and colorful on the ground caught my eye. The discarded stems were flowering! The water had been dripping onto the stems below. The plant in the hanging basket eventually died but the cuttings I discarded are thriving.
“OK,” I said, smiling as I shrugged my shoulders. “You didn’t want to grow in the pot. You wanted to grow in the ground. So be it.” I hope I bring that sensitivity to my life and ministry. It involves not trying to force people into my way of doing things but discerning the Spirit’s movement and celebrating when an idea takes root even if it’s not what I had in mind!
Life with economically poor people in the rural Latin American countryside constantly reminded me of this basic wisdom: We’re not in control, and we need each other. As I anticipated returning to live in the U.S., I was aware that there are buffers here that shield us from that wisdom, promoting instead the illusion of control and individualism. Then it struck me. Nature teaches us the same lessons. Who feels in control when it rains on a long-planned picnic? Who thinks they can go it alone when they’re stuck in a snowdrift? I realized that living close to Earth was crucial to staying in touch with life’s wisdom as I returned to my own home culture.
We’ve all experienced moments of wonder when we know we are part of something larger than ourselves, when we’re awestruck by beauty and humbled by the interconnectedness of life.
Susan Classen CoL
Now, as the caretaker of Cedars of Peace, a cluster of eight retreat cabins in the woods at Loretto Motherhouse, I often find myself chafing at the reminders that I’m not in control. Squirrels chew the wooden steps and siding of the cabins and nest in the attics despite my efforts to stop them. A narrow band of straight line wind tears through the woods. Asian beetles and stink bugs find their way through what I thought were tightly sealed windows. I’m not in control!
But there’s the beauty, oh the beauty. A sunset paints the sky in shades of red and orange against the dark backdrop of the woods. Native grasses and bright yellow flowers sparkle in the morning dew. A butterfly lands on my shoulder. We’ve all experienced moments of wonder when we know we are part of something larger than ourselves, when we’re awestruck by beauty and humbled by the interconnectedness of life. That’s when the knowledge that I’m not in control comes as a gift to celebrate, and the awareness that I can’t make it alone becomes a portal into relationship with all living beings.
Susan Classen CoL
Photo: Susan Classen CoL
We are very vulnerable; we cannot do it alone. We need to be bound back (re-ligare: the root meaning of religion) to Earth without whose nurturance we cannot exist. We need to reconnect with each other, lest in our greed-fueled hostilities we destroy ourselves and the planet. We need, finally, to know ourselves one in our God, the Source of all life and goodness. …
Elaine Prevallet
We live in complete dependence upon an inescapably interconnected world, which itself is held in being only through the gift of the Creator.
“In the Service of Life”
Photo: NASA
Precisely because our culture lures us to breadth without depth, a primary practice that is incumbent upon us is the practice of attentiveness. This practice is universal: It has been bedrock for almost all religious traditions. Attentiveness focuses energy; it establishes a sense of mutuality, intimacy, presence to the other. … Attentiveness enables us to get out of the way in order to receive the other. Attentiveness prepares the way for communion.
Elaine Prevallet SL
“In the Service of Life”
Photo by Donna Mattingly SL
The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things.
Pope Francis
Laudato Si’
Over the last two decades, we [in Loretto] have more consciously expanded our reach to understand our connection with all living and non-living things on Earth and to marvel at the vastness and beauty of the cosmos. We have a new appreciation of our 14-billion year history and how creation evolved. … Those who are drawn to help create a new universal humanity give a high priority to global community, spiritual practice and co-creating a vastly better future for all Earth life.
Maureen McCormack SL
Loretto Earth Network News, spring 2010
To read all the articles in the Spring/Summer 2024 issue of Loretto Magazine, click here.
