September — the Season of Creation

The Easter season, the Christmas season and the seasons of Lent and Advent are familiar old liturgical “seasons”. But a “Season of Creation” is a recent invention. It was initiated by people who noticed a gap in the spirituality of Christians who commonly celebrated the great historical feasts of Christianity (especially Easter, Christmas and Pentecost) but did not pay much attention to the seasons of the Earth itself. Surprising perhaps, because these liturgical cycles are embedded in the natural Earth cycles (Easter = spring; Christmas = mid-winter). Or perhaps not surprising for us in the southern hemisphere where the historical feasts do not correspond at all with the natural Earth cycles (Easter = autumn; Christmas = mid-summer). We believe, nevertheless, in God the Creator of heaven and earth (as we proclaim in the traditional Creeds) but this did not seem to have anything to do with the cycles of sun, moon and Earth. Hence, a liturgical “Season of Creation” which calls attention to this neglected dimension of Christian spirituality.

Our spirituality can easily become unbalanced — operating in just one or two dimensions and being blind to the other dimensions. It is easy to see this in our past where one or other dimension of Christian spirituality came into prominence then faded away as it went in or out of fashion.

The Personal Dimension

Personal spirituality pays most attention to personal prayer, personal retreats and personal development. It is focused on communion with God within the interiority of our own hearts. It finds nourishment in the Christian mystics whose experience of God was intensely personalist.

This is an important dimension of Christian spirituality, but it is also a trap for those whose culture already inclines them to an individualist lifestyle. It is primarily self-focused, about “me” and my personal journey into God. It slides easily into a narrowed devotion to particular saints or to private revelations of Jesus or Mary.

The Church/Community Dimension

The personal dimension of Christian spirituality has become more prominent recently even as church spirituality has waned. Not long ago, there was an emphasis for many people on the Church/community dimension of Christian spirituality. Here our belonging to a community of people, a Church, is an important way of being Christian. It calls for some degree of self-sacrifice — paying attention to others and fitting in with others, being aware of the need for structures and communication. It is not so much about “me” and more about “we”. It expresses itself in community prayer, Sunday Eucharist and sacramental liturgies.

This spirituality has taken something of a knock in recent decades with a diminishing of trust in Church leaders, the increase in clericalism and a rise of individualism in some of our contemporary cultures.

But also the Church dimension of spirituality has received some revival in recent years with the emphasis on “community’”in parishes and revival movements such as “divine renovation”.

The Social Justice Dimension

Social justice spirituality has ancient roots in the “reign of God” theology of the Gospels and the warrior song (the “Magnificat” Luke 1:46–55) of Mary of Nazareth. It is only a few hundred years old, however, in its modern form.

It came into prominence with the spread of democracy in nations where the Church became free from its alliance and reliance on imperial and aristocratic governments. It has been nourished by papal encyclicals on social justice since the 1890s.

This spirituality focuses not so much on “me” and my intentions, but more on the common good of all. It is founded on, but is more than, acts of compassion for those in need. It calls for structural change in society. Its style is “prophetic” and confrontational because so much of contemporary society is unjust and violent.

The Creation Dimension

Creation spirituality is a dimension of Christian spirituality that has come into prominence only recently. It focuses on the human relationship with the larger world.

There has always been a tradition of “creation” within Christian spirituality, but in the late 20th century this dimension of spirituality evolved in a different way to meet the powerful secular ideology which regarded human beings as the “owners” of the non-human world to be used and exploited for human use.

This creation spirituality emphasises the “interconnectedness”, the “harmony” of all things. It leads to a sense of wonder and its prayer is often contemplation of the natural world, sacraments of their Creator. By the late 20th century this creation spirituality was also evolutionary — human beings are an integral part of an evolving cosmos.

Yet creation spirituality itself has continued to evolve. The idea of “creation” as interconnected and harmonious is itself a mixed blessing. Christian spirituality can be trapped within a biblical idea of “creation” understood as a relatively small “cosmos”. We know, now, how unimaginably large the universe is. We live in an infinitesimally small bit of it — this tiny planet Earth. We can see the harmony of creation on the large scale but the Earth we actually live in is complex, diverse, and often dangerous to many of the living species within it.

We may have been deceived by too literal an interpretation of some powerful biblical images like the image of the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:4–25) where the original humans lived in harmony with the rest of creation, or the image of a new creation in which the prophet Isaiah foresees a future, peaceful world where the “wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid … and a little child shall lead them” (Is 11: 6–9). These are peaceful images of a natural world without predators.

From Contemplation to Ethics

The mention of “predators” forces our creation spirituality to evolve again, by descending from the contemplation of the natural world to the ethics of engagement in the natural world.

Contemporary creation spirituality leads us into issues of natural decay (including the deaths and the suffering of sentient beings) and predation (nature “red in tooth and claw”). It leads us, in other words, to worry about the role of predators, ourselves among them, within the interconnectedness of Earth beings, and in particular, our destruction of other beings (animal and vegetable) for food, clothing, and shelter.

Our creation spirituality needs to deal now with ethical issues like when it is legitimate to kill for food and shelter and when it is not, about the balancing of the intrinsic values of different beings, about our carbon emissions into the atmosphere, and restraints on our consumption and waste.

It leads us, for example, into taking part in the current war being waged in Aotearoa New Zealand between birds and small mammalian predators (mainly possums, rats and feral cats) for which we are at least partly responsible, and may require us to kill the predators for the sake of the birds.

Oddly, our creation spirituality which began in the contemplation of natural beauty and the interconnectedness of all things, has evolved towards ethical decisions about what we should kill, and when, and how much.

We need all four of these dimensions of Christian spirituality. The personal dimension, the Church/community dimension, the social justice dimension and the creation dimension are all interrelated. The Season of Creation helps to bring back a balance and an integration in our spiritual life by calling attention to the most neglected of these four dimensions.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 263 September 2021: 4-5