LIVING IN KINSHIP WITH THE EARTH

• FIVE RESPONSES ON SEEING A FLOWER
   The Contemplative Life and Kinship with Creation

Photo by Dan Miller

The contemplative life is a deliberate, enlivening, and liberating way of living prayerfully in the world. It not only guides us to be present to the Divine Presence and open and available to other humans, but also inspires us toward real, intimate, reverent, and holy communion with nature. In a world often afflicted by self-absorption, human arrogance, exploitation, greed, violence, and indifference to others and creation, we need and secretly yearn for a new way of being that serves as an effective antidote to behaviors that desecrate other humans and the whole earth community. Join us as we use Dorothee Soelle’s poem “Five Responses on Seeing a Flower” to explore an authentic, alternative way of living in harmony together, one that is contemplatively awake, wildly wonderful, reverently responsible, and mutually beneficial to all the beings that belong to the sacred community called earth.

• Laudato Si – What Does It Really Say? Why Does It Really Matter?

In the Spirit of his 12th century namesake who related to the sun, moon, wind, water, fire and all earth’s creatures as brother and sister, Pope Francis’ first encyclical is an emphatic reaffirmation of the sacredness of creation, a lament for the human arrogance and carelessness that has so severely desecrated the natural world, and a proclamation and clarion call to all people of the world to make choices, change behavior, and engage in actions that consciously engender “care for our common home.” Although intended as a call to action for all people of good will, Laudato Si unequivocally asserts that care of creation and the earth is a constitutive dimension of an authentic Christian spirituality and therefore a responsibility and duty of all Christians.

This presentation highlights the main points of the encyclical, especially as it emphasizes the urgency of the situation, presents a “theology of ecology,” and demands of us a new way of being in the world based on “mutual responsibility between human beings and nature.”

There’s a lot of buzz out there about this encyclical letter. But what does it really say and why does it really matter? Come find out.