Creation Care Ministry Spotlight: "Transformation"
The Creation Care Committee provides resources to help individuals and congregations become better stewards of God's creation and to inspire all to explore the spiritual nature of Creation Care. With this in mind, committee members are sharing stories of their love of nature and all beings in God’s good creation.
In 2018, a fall rainstorm flooded our yard and the base of our old Hackberry tree. During the storm I heard a gentle scraping sound on a window screen. When the rain stopped I went out to discover that she had laid herself down, the Hackberry. Her roots lifted by the storm, she had slowly fallen, barely missing our house.
Her jungle thicket filled our entire yard. How beautiful she was: her trunk a sensuous sculpture. "I cannot part with her." I said. So the brush that needed to go in order to clear a way around the yard was gathered up; however, her entire trunk remained, and her roots were undisturbed.
Over winter I mourned her death. However, by spring, she sprouted new growth, green shoots and leaves all over her body. All spring we marveled at her transformation. The abundance she now heaps on us is her new occupation: no longer a shade tree, she is now a living testimony to the generosity of God’s Creation.
I love the old Hackberry with all of my being. She is an altar, more beautiful than ever. Little solar lights—spirit lights we call them—perch along her trunk in new leafy splendor on holy ground.
We live in Creation along with countless other beings, all loved by God. Some of them are human. For me, this is our very rootedness in Christ: divine spirit and earthly matter fused, inseparable. Abundance all around calls us to holy transformation.
Sam Gilliam
Reconciliation, San Antonio
Celebrating Earth Day 2023
This year, Earth Day was celebrated on Saturday, April 22. Episcopalians are invited to commemorate it by praying, preaching, and taking action to care for God’s creation. Click here for Earth Day resources from The Episcopal Church.
