At the Black American Indian Congress in Washington DC on July 19th, I was asked to explain my spirituality for an Ecohermanas film. These thoughts came to me and I share them with you…
In Genesis chapter two, The Creator places woman and man in a forest garden and tells them to serve and preserve the land. Let us consider this as the first commandment. This is long before the story of Moses giving rules to those fleeing oppression. When humans were first formed and given the Earth as a home, there was no directive saying worship your Creator or don’t lie, or don’t steal. In the original–direct relationship between humankind and Creator– oneness with one another was the truth and expected to continue; so humans were only told to love the land.
Is it possible that if we focus on loving the land we will resume the human destiny of oneness with our Creator and having reached oneness with our Creator we will know how to live in harmony with one another? Christ used the earth in parables to teach communal harmony, as well as using the earth in actual healing events. He said he wanted to tell us more, but we could not bear it–did that include more land based instructions?
So let’s look at the land the original man and woman were placed in. It was a tree based landscape that combined food production and beauty. By placing the herbs within these guilds, medicines for humans, and balance for insects were woven into food production. These are important lessons of ecological balance which we can repeat in our personal yards as well as public green spaces. These are lessons which will help us thrive during climate change.
A diverse landscape keeps soil in place and constantly purifies our water supply. Human souls are purified when we practice humility– spread a table and share our plenty with those who are different from us. A diverse landscape will stop consuming the land with pure greed, dissolving many social crises. Redemption of our souls is welded to redemption of our soil.
Soil is a community of diverse beings; and as we learn to cultivate soil, we also learn to cultivate our diverse voices. We learn to seek out and appreciate the voices of water which are calm and lead us into flexibility; or the cool voices of the Earth which are steadfast and immovable on integrity.
So life may be so simple as to learn to love the natural diversity of the land which was originally given to all of us. Harmonious cultural diversity follows harmonious biodiversity. Preserve the natural abundance embedded in our Creator’s original design and we will have the peace all of us ache for. As we cultivate a garden philosophy of life, we will learn to weed out greed, malice and all of the other manifestations of fear before they establish a stronghold in our cultures.
Rev. M. Dele, is available for preaching and teaching engagements at rev@revdele.com She is an eco-theologist,Climate Reality leader and permaculture professor who weaves a social fabric which redeems soil and souls together. http://www.naturesfriends.ning.com