“Thankyou lord that we don’t have to worship Mother Earth”

This was a prayer I once heard at a Christian meeting, which piqued my interest and stayed in my mind long afterwards. Knowing nothing of the person concerned, I wondered what had made him pray such a thing. It certainly wasn’t the subject of our prayer time so he may have had previous experiences which he was consciously rejecting in this prayer.

Christians don’t worship Mother Earth. Of course not, Christians are monotheists.

But should they at least honour her, out of respect that she is our home and habitat?

This prayer really got me thinking. Biblical writers frequently talk about angels and other spiritual entities in real terms. This is something we find hard to believe today, in our modern materialistic times. Most conservative christians would not focus any spiritual efforts on any other being than God, even though their scriptures contain many interactions with other spiritual creatures.

But what about other creatures, other beings, other existences? In the physical world, we interact with animals and plants and other humans on a daily basis. One of the unfortunate outcomes of hardcore monotheism is that it focuses only on God, the One, to the exclusion of everything else in creation. This happens despite the fact that daily life is mostly about everything else. Eternity will apparently be spent in the presence of God, worshiping him continually. If there are other creatures there (the Bible makes reference to myriads of angels around the heavenly throne), we will barely notice them. We will be so caught up with worship of the divine, whom we will presumably see face to face, that we won’t even notice our heavenly surroundings.

Yet this world, this creation, is inherantly good, and it’s also extremely complex. It is vast beyond all human knowing, despite the best efforts of scientists to study it. It consists of billions of galaxies as far out into space as our telescopes can see. Millions of species of plant and animal life are found on our Earth, all unique and biologically complex. We don’t worship these, but we should at least honour them as fellow creatures. For in honouring the creatures and the natural world, we honour the creator, the divine artist. In looking at the natural world, studying it, expressing it artistically, we do honour to the one who designed it.

So should we not too honour the Earth, our home? And if we can honour her, and give her an imagined gender, is it too much of a stretch of imagination to name her also? Mother Earth perhaps, or the increasingly popular name Gaia?

She is the one from whom all the atoms of our bodies come, and to whom our bodies will return when we die.

Is she not worthy of our utmost respect, worthy to be cared for and protected from the rampant destruction we are wreaking upon her, in the same way we would protect and honour our own human mother, keeping her from harm?

Friends, let us honour the earth we call home. It is only through her that our bodies have eyes to see, ears to hear, and minds to comprehend the greater mysteries of this life here. We are part of this creation, fellow-creatures with all other beings. Without Gaia to sustain us we could not live. And without the breath of Spirit, of God, to enliven us, we would be but inanimate dust.

In the genesis story, after fashioning a man-shape from the dust off the earth, God breathed his Spirit into Adam, and “he became a living being”. Presumably then, all creatures which live are also animated by God’s spirit too, or they would not be living beings.

Earth, the Mother, provided the dust, the raw material. And God the Father breathed his spirit. This is how humans were created, according to genesis.

Somewhere in here, in this musical union of spirit and matter, there is a sacred wedding appearing. The wedding between Spirit and Matter (even the word matter comes from mater – the mother). Is it too much of a stretch to see it then also as a wedding between Christ and Gaia?

To be continued in future reflections.

Peace and Blessings.