The long and short of it

The world is a wild and wonderful place.

The world is a holy place, the manifestation of everything Divine.

The world is all we have; it is ours to nurture, steward, and enjoy.

I didn’t grow up believing this.

I was taught that the world was evil and overrun with wickedness. I was taught to be afraid of others, of landscapes and groups and ideas. I was taught that I was not of this world; I was separate, of somewhere and something else—meaning that I don’t belong here; we are not compatible, this world and me. I, and all of us, apparently, are just passing through, so what of the way we strip the forests bare and plunder the ocean and take the beauty of green and gold and river and mountain for granted? What of the way we kill and cut and take? What of the way we preach and divide and call people and places unclean?

I remember being told stories of how one day, the earth would burn and the sky would fall and God would vanquish all that was left behind, so it didn’t matter what we did to this place—it was a tool, an object, collateral damage held captive by a Kingdom vying for a more pure place.

Why is it then that the trees seem to speak to me? That the ocean can both sing me a lullaby and mirror my pain? Why is it that my body came from dust and will return to it? Why do I feel such resonance when I take my shoes off and sink my toes into the dirt? Why is it that the air and the water and the ground and all of creation are vital for our survival? Why are we so connected to this earth if we are not meant to be? Made to be? Why does my heart open wider than I thought it could when I listen to the stories of others also living in the world? Why does it heal me to walk into a city or into the bush and tell my story and seek wisdom and find myself heard and enlightened?

After forty years, I know this for sure: This is my home. I belong here. The earth and me, we are connected, we communicate, we were made for each other, from each other. What I do flows into it, and what happens to it flows back into me.

The world is a holy place.

John Philip Newell said:

“In Celtic wisdom the sacred is as present on earth as it is in heaven, as immanent as it is transcendent, as human as it is divine, as physical as it is spiritual. The sacred can be breathed in, tasted, touched, heard, and seen as much in the body of the earth and the body of another living being as in the body of religion. It is the true essence of all life.”

It turns out that the world? This one? The one that we curse and blame and neglect and minimise? It carries us; it holds our stories and our bodies. It provides for us: shelter and nourishment. It empowers us: beauty and resource. It is ours, and we are its, and together we belong in the family of the universe. This is heaven. Here and now.

This is all we have. Not all, as in only, but all as in vast and glorious and the great generative and inclusive and ever-expanding all of all...

this
is
ALL.

This is a truth that changes the very shape of existence:

The world is a holy place, and here we are at home within it.

DOING THE WORK:

“My work is loving the world.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?
Let me keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.”

— Mary Oliver