Bio-diversity as Bio-divinity!

Biophilia and bio-divinity are interrelated and inter-feeding. Bio-divinity is not so much a new idea about God as it is a new divine awareness that can be an antidote to so much that ails humanity today. It is about getting rid of the “optical illusion of separateness” as Einstein calls it, of our dualistic thinking and divisive seeing of reality. It is about deleting the sky-deity from your mind and seeing biodiversity as bio-divinity.

Decouple heaven and hell from their perceived polarity because heaven and hell are not two sides of the same coin. Heaven and Earth belong together, not Heaven and Hell.

An experiment suggested by author Joshua Ryan Butler may come as an eye opener. He invited Christians to search the Bible for verses that have both the words Heaven and Hell. The result is zero.

Contrary to Christian preaching and popular culture, where Heaven and Hell are paired together, the Bible does not put them in the same sentence or the same category. On the contrary, Heaven and Earth are paired together in nearly 200 verses in the Bible. Hell is not the polarity of Heaven — Earth is.

Heaven and Earth were created together, and they belong together. Heaven and Earth are two dimensions of the same reality that intersect and overlap so that the divine encases and embraces the whole realm.

In the fifth century, Celtic theologian, Pelagius, wrote about seeing the life of God manifested in creation. Everywhere, he says, “narrow shafts of divine light pierce the veil that separates heaven from earth.” To a friend he wrote:

“Look at the animals roaming the forest: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the birds flying across the sky: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: God’s spirit dwells within them. . .Look too at the great trees of the forest; look at the wildflowers and the grass in the fields; look even at your crops. God’s spirit is present within all plants as well. The presence of God’s spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful; and if we look with God’s eyes, nothing on the earth is ugly.”

Realize that you are looking for God, with His eyes!

You don’t need aristocratic genealogy, or academic theology to decode and decipher it. All you need is an adamant desire to search beneath the surface and the audacity to claim your identity as part of the fabric of creation and as a participant in the process of co-creation.

In her book Grounded: Finding God in the World, a Spiritual Revolution, Diana Butler Bass puts it eloquently:

“God is the ground, the grounding that which grounds us. We experience this when we understand that soil is holy, water gives life, the sky opens the imagination, our roots matter, home is a divine place, and our lives are linked with our neighbors’ and with those around the globe. This world, not heaven, is the sacred stage of our times.”

I now realize that life on Earth is a theater of grace with continuous performances. Seeing everything as sacred here, there, and everywhere, lights up my interiors with a special radiance.

(from Cosmic Kindergarten: Earthly Lessons for a Heavenly Life)