The Color of Faith
“There is a nobility in the duty to care for creation through little daily actions.”
Pope Francis in Laudato Si
If my faith had a color, it would be green. My interest in and engagement with the environment, the earth, creation—whatever name we choose to give this, our home—has always been entwined with my spirituality. It’s been with me for as long as I can remember. When I was young, I would announce to my mother that I was going “out to the woods,” and would happily stay there for hours, studying the trees and plants, hoping to spot a rabbit, or better, a deer! Often I created elaborate adventures in my imagination that sometimes involved following difficult trails, avoiding capture, and executing daring rescues or escapes.
Despite my invented high-risk adventures, I felt comforted and connected in the forest and often talked, not just to the animals I encountered, but also to the plants and trees. Sometimes I even sang to them. I can still remember how my mother described what I did. She called it “communing with nature.”
Communing. Communication. Communion. No matter what I was taught by the Catholic church in which I was raised, where I found and felt God most was in the natural world. There, belief wasn’t required. God happened every moment.
My spirituality has grown up, grown stale, taken unexpected turns, gone shallow, and deepened again over the years. Along the twisting, tumbling way, nature has remained the through-line.
Eco-spirituality. I ran across this term about a year ago and felt a splash of recognition. Though I try to avoid labels when it comes to something so nebulous, this one probably comes closest to describing my faith, which is experienced and lived in the world, especially the natural world. Because of this, I do what I can to celebrate, care for, and protect our shared home and her inhabitants.
If you’re interested in joining with other faithful people of all paths doing what we can to cherish our planet, check out greenfaith.org and livingthechange.net.
