Finished!

One adequate, if not inspired Evensong sermon on our responsibility for creation.
In the course of preparing it, I found an article by susperstar Walter ("The Powers") Wink . There was so much good stuff, I ended up wanting to write an essay myself...
I'll spare you that, but in a week in which I've been specially conscious of the natural world and the extremes of climate, I loved these words.

We unite to struggle together for ecojustice. But we are motivated to do so, not just because we are terrified of the consequences of ecodisaster, though that does indeed terrify and motivate us. Nor are we motivated solely by the demand of the gospel, with its challenge to all domination. Nor are we motivated simply by a hunger and thirst after justice for all God's creatures, though all these are factors.

More deeply, we are motivated by our hunger for God. For as Thomas Berry puts it, when we destroy the living forms of this planet, the first consequence is that we destroy modes of Divine presence. "If we have a wonderful sense of the divine, it is because we live amid such awesome magnificence. If we have refinement of emotion and sensitivity, it is because of the delicacy, the fragrance, and the indescribable beauty of soul and music and rhythmic movement in the world about us."28 Our very gusto for living, the joy that satisfies us and blesses our days, are largely a function of the sheer beauty and abundance of nature. We are already beginning to feel the loss as fewer songbirds greet us with the dawn. When we degrade the environment, we deprive ourselves of the most powerful and constant revelation of the Divine itself. When we diminish nature, we diminish the ecstasy and sheer happiness of dwelling on this solitary and incomparable earth. When we damage this intricate and vulnerable creation, we must reckon with a consequent loss in the thrill of being a creature.

It appears that God is not a remote deity external to the universe, but is present in every energy-event of spirit-matter. In the final analysis, then, we struggle for ecojustice because we are deliriously in love with God's body, this greening and vivid earth.

And indeed, it was very good.