Quote of the Day: In his encyclical on Care for Our Common Home, Pope Francis reminds us of the core of Saint Francis’s Canticle for all Creature in Creation: “Our common home is like a sister with whom we are our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us, who sustains and governs us, and who produces divers fruits with many-coloured flowers and aromatic herbs.”
Commentary: It seems that Our Creator want to “bring us to our senses,” to take delight in this world and all the life that nurtures us. That is also at the core of the Earth Day impulse that emerged fifty years ago — do not forget, do not isolate, and do not forget to take time each day with the blessing that this ecosphere contains. In Teilhard de Charhin’s theology of the earth, we are urged to embrace the noosphere as well as the next stage of evolution in which our minds, hearts and spirits are in sync with the earthliness of existence as much as our bodies can be. If that becomes widely practiced, “caring for creation” is no longer an abstraction, but becomes a continuous prayer of practice.
Suggested Action #2: Take a little time each day in a guided meditation to imagine all the other species with whom you interact every day, including the microbes on and in our bodies whose cells are 10,000 more abundant than those of our own genome. Each of us is living, evolving community of many species; we are not alone. Sing or sketch a prayer to these hidden allies that are part of your sense of communitas.
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Gary Paul Nabhan aka Brother Coyote is a professed member of the Ecumenical Order of Franciscans, a graduate of the Living School, a conservation biologist, orchard-keeper and story-teller.
