Earth as primordial Sacrament

Religions seem to separate us from the Earth rather than tethering us to its magnificence. It is as if religion forgot its primary function — to bind or connect — because religion comes from the Latin word religare to bind.

Centuries ago, Thomas Aquinas warned “that a mistake about creation results in a mistake about God.”

That is why Gandhi said: “To become divine is to become attuned to the whole of creation.”

When you wake up from the religious fog and fall in love with planet Earth, and embrace a planetary spirituality, you will realize how controlling, confusing, cajoling, confounding, confining, and censuring organized religions are, and truly experience the freedom of the children of God.

Most religions parcel out blessings through designated and approved channels. For example, a Hindu must go to a temple, make an offering to the God of his choice from the elaborate Hindu pantheon, and pay the temple priest to receive the blessing. The Catholic Church has seven sacraments through which grace and blessings are channeled from God to the believer. A sacrament is defined as a visible sign of invisible grace. Instead of separate sacraments for special occasions, this book invites you to see planet Earth as the primordial sacrament.

Nicaraguan priest and poet Ernesto Cardenal gives poetic expression to this need for a sacramental vision, in these words:

Everything in nature has a trademark, God’s trademark.

the stripes on a shell and the stripes on a zebra.

the grain of the wood and the veins of the dry leaf.

the markings on the dragonfly’s wings and the pattern of stars on a photographic plate.

the panther’s coat and the epidermal cells of the lily petal.

the structure of atoms and galaxies.

all bear God’s fingerprints.

If you look deeply, you will realize that every aspect of this amazing planet is oozing with grace and pulsating with divine energy. We don’t need organized religion and complicated theology, cooked up by armchair scholars and theologians, to mediate the divine to us. All that you need to do is stop, relax, breathe, open your eyes, and see that it is in the wonder and marvel of creation itself that we see the face of God.

“Seek truth in meditation, not in a moldy book. Look in the sky to find the moon, not in the pond.” says a Persian proverb.

When a moldy book makes you mold negative opinions about fellow humans, it is time to abandon the book and embrace a wider cosmic book — the planet. When the Bible stands in the way of practicing the Bible’s primary teaching — love — it is time to leave the Bible behind.

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