For What Shall We Pray?
Care of the Earth and the Devotional Life
by Jay C. Rochelle

Too often we pray for things with which we sense no connection. That is, our prayer marks a separation from the persons or causes with whom we are connected by compassion. To elevate nature to the level of intercession may mean that we remove ourselves from an ongoing process, as if we stood outside nature. We may deem ourselves to be apart from the realm rather than part of it.

At the same time, prayer may become an excuse rather than an occasion for action. If we have a miraculous understanding of prayer as seeking God's intervention in natural events, we may pass off our responsibility for the care of the earth to God. This neat trick has been used as a means to hallow exploitation for many generations.

Thus, prayer may become a way to avoid participation in the very processes for which we pray. To pray to be spared from "war and pestilence, famine and bloodshed" is indeed a noble prayer but may trick us to think that our actions have few or no consequences. The answer to prayers that we be delivered from war comes as personal and collective consciousness is transformed so that peacefulness gains a value higher in the public eye and mind than does bellicosity, and that there be commensurate rewards for peacemaking as there have been for war. By the same token, continued overuse of land for single crops has the consequence that soils are stripped of nutrients and can become completely barren. The answer to prayers that we be spared famine may rather lie in intelligent use of the earth's resources in agriculture. The answer to prayers that we be delivered from famine and pestilence runs through a more ecologically sound policy that would eschew those actions we now know to lead to erosion, the attraction of pests, or soil nutrient deficiencies. As I travel our highways I think that concrete actions are the answers to such prayers like the booming construction of bluebird houses along the fence posts of rural America.

Encourage prayers for a transformation of consciousness. We seek a spirituality of downwardness, inwardness, sustainability and stability to replace the powerful myths of upward growth, constant expansion, overuse and mobility which have characterized the American temperament. Time was we could simply travel west to new vistas and horizons, and leave our old lives and our trash behind But the only "west" left is in the imagination. The rest of it is zoned or, thank God, owned by the national parks or the nature conservancies.

What shall we pray for? To be led to the spirituality mentioned in the last paragraph by way of at least three renewed understandings of what it means to be human.

First, let us pray so that we see and accept our participation in the created order. Too often, prayers for redemption mean prayers of extrication: "Stop the world, I want to get off!" We lose sight of, or never recognize, that redemption, though it will be made perfect in heaven, begins here and now, as we are restored to our place as stewards of the creation, participants in the processes we are also privileged by our intelligence and consciousness to observe.

Let us pray that our participation may be eucharistic. We are priests of creation, i.e., we stand between the creation and God and we offer the creation back to its origin. Our vocation as redeemed people is to complete the circle of creation by returning it to God in thanksgiving. This is the task of the priest, and we are all priests of creation. Gratitude is the first motion, not use. We have to make intelligent decisions about what to do with what we are given, but the movement of praise and thanksgiving helps to temper us to resist greed and avarice, gives us a vantage point from which to consider the uses of creation.

Christians have been redeemed to take their place as priests of creation. Christ's work in redemption is not only a gift of wholeness that I will experience after physical death, it is a wholeness which works in me now to repeal the ravages of sin and to restore me to full humanity, which means the restoration of right relations with the natural realm as well as with my human co-travelers on planet earth. Hence any moves in the direction of restored creation are going to feel right and wholesome to us because that way is consonant with our deepest being in God.

In the age of ecological disaster, let us pray that redemption reaches so far that we may trust our deepest intuitions to teach us what it means to participate in the natural world, so that we might know deepened awareness and acceptance of our place in creation.

To become one with the creation of which we are part will mean that we recognize that the politics and economics of domination and exploitation are a form of idolatry. God created us capable of life in stewardship in cooperation with nature, but we rebelled. God's Christ came among us not only for human salvation but for cosmic restoration. Hence a politics of domination is contrary to the single purpose of God in creation and redemption, which is the achievement of harmony and peace and wholeness in the garden. No holiness that lies in the way of domination.

Secondly, let us pray that we learn to live within limits. There is a boundedness to human existence; "transgression," a word rarely heard any more, means to step over boundaries or limits which keep us from forbidden territory. We need renewed awareness that transgression is a real danger, particularly with regard to our environment. It is difficult in the age of "enlightened self-interest" (another term that legitimates and valorizes greed), to uphold the real truth of transgression. We must approach it by the low road, i.e., with an eye toward self-interest. So we must learn that to tread harshly upon eco-systems is to court personal disaster, as the structures that keep us alive crumble roundabout us: air, water, chlorophyll, and the land itself. If we must transgress, we do so as participants and not observers of the transgression and with such awareness, our minds and hearts are turned toward more intelligent use of natural resources.

We may well celebrate those aspects of human nature which seem limitless, e.g., creativity and imagination. But there are limits to growth. We do not know exactly what these limits are, and we are constantly testing the boundaries, but we need to pray in such a way that we remind ourselves that there are boundaries. The recognition that there are limits is a step in the right direction.

This step leads us into the realm of inwardness and downwardness, as mentioned above. The human mind is free to roam, the human spirit is free to soar. There are limitations to the body, and we need to harness our creativity and imagination in such a way as to inspire and release the spirit without having to endanger our surroundings. Former generations of spiritual guides and followers have done so; we can learn again to do it. The experiment which tied spiritual achievement to human domination of the natural world needs to be declared passé. A new spirituality of inwardness and humility awaits us in the next century.

Thirdly, let us pray to be led to the celebration of matter again. Christianity has been deemed the most materialistic of all the world's religions. If this is so, the evidence has been lacking, at least if this means that we honor and esteem matter.

Part of the problem is that very few of us make anything anymore. When we cease to be makers, a large part of our connectedness to the natural world is lost. At this end of the century most people are now what our faculty secretary, Michael Hefter, calls Luftmenschen people who deal in air, i.e., speculators and their brood. The more Luftmenschen, the less connection to the actual world of things.

We have relegated the world of simple making to vocational-technical or agricultural schools, which receive far less respect than do academic institutions. We might pray for a rebirth of making.

At the same time, making can also include activities that tie us into the natural world: fishing, birding, camping, and the like. Nothing keys our attention to natural surroundings more than the observation of migrations of birds over the course of years in a particular setting.

For these three things might we pray toward the birth of a renewed spirituality that includes care of the earth.

Prayer and liturgy are powerful guides. Liturgy has no proper end other than the praise and thanks we offer to God; nonetheless, our liturgical patterns both mirror and construct our understanding of the world in which we live. We need to pay attention to this pattern. Here are three guiding words, in conclusion, about liturgy.

First, liturgy claims a space in the world for the God of creation and redemption, and as such it comes as a foreign or alien word to the world of greed and abuse. At its heart beats the truth that "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein." All movement in contradiction to this truth is subverted and overcome as liturgy draws us up into thanksgiving and praise. Where this claim is not heard, liturgy is misunderstood and needs support by interpretation.

Second, liturgy constructs a world view. Christian liturgy has paid most of its attention to the work of redemption. This emphasis needs to be balanced as we work toward the crafting of new liturgies. Newer liturgical prayers pay attention to God's work in creation and sanctification, but more work can be done in this area. Experiment. Give yourself permission to craft prayers and litanies that take the creative action of God into consideration more surely than some past models have done.

Third, liturgy celebrates the presence of God. Again, Christian liturgy by the emphasis it has paid to redemption has often failed to celebrate the presence of God in creation. Canticles like the so-called Hymn of St. Francis or the benedicite omnia opera, many of the Psalms (24, 104 and 136 spring immediately to mind), and hymnody can be highlighted to redress the imbalance.

Intent is half the battle. As we allow ourselves a period of adjustment, we will discover resources in our tradition and invent new ones that bring the care of the earth to its rightful place in worship.

Jay C. Rochelle, M.Div., Th.M., is Associate Professor of Worship and Dean of the Chapel at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.

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