SOUTH PACIFIC-
What is the Sabbath and why should Christians and the earth experience it?
How does God reconcile not only humanity but Creation to himself and what does it mean for us to reconcile with Creation as well?
Why is food so important?
Do our souls need the wild?
Where is hope in the midst of this age of ecological degredation?
These were just some of the questions we wrestled with in the two sections of our God and Nature course, taught by Norman Wirzba from Duke University and Corey Beals from George Fox University.
Norman, as a farmer himself, led us into the theology of the biblical basis for creation care from the ground up; we often returned to food as a way to understand how God intended the relationship between us and non-human Creation. By exploring food systems and the way in which humans have used the earth to obtain food or energy, we also discovered the brokenness of that relationship.
When the theology and reality of our own and our world’s brokenness began to weigh on our hearts, Norm took us out to experience the joy that still runs strong in God’s world. On one fine late summer's day, we hiked our way through beautiful and ancient NZ forest up the side of a ridge. After a steep climb we emerged on the spine where the cloud-shrouded Seaward Kaikoura mountains stood and the wee town we have come to love so much lay below. There we stood and prayed for Kaikoura, our place, our Earth and for the things we had come to learn to affect us as they ought. Later on we spent an afternoon on the farm of our friend who provides all our fruits and veggies. There we weeded, planted, fed (and caught) chickens, painted, mowed, played with a dog and ate some barbeque. There’s nothing like getting your hands dirty to realize you need the earth to eat!
How does God reconcile not only humanity but Creation to himself and what does it mean for us to reconcile with Creation as well?
Why is food so important?
Do our souls need the wild?
Where is hope in the midst of this age of ecological degredation?
These were just some of the questions we wrestled with in the two sections of our God and Nature course, taught by Norman Wirzba from Duke University and Corey Beals from George Fox University.
Norman, as a farmer himself, led us into the theology of the biblical basis for creation care from the ground up; we often returned to food as a way to understand how God intended the relationship between us and non-human Creation. By exploring food systems and the way in which humans have used the earth to obtain food or energy, we also discovered the brokenness of that relationship.
When the theology and reality of our own and our world’s brokenness began to weigh on our hearts, Norm took us out to experience the joy that still runs strong in God’s world. On one fine late summer's day, we hiked our way through beautiful and ancient NZ forest up the side of a ridge. After a steep climb we emerged on the spine where the cloud-shrouded Seaward Kaikoura mountains stood and the wee town we have come to love so much lay below. There we stood and prayed for Kaikoura, our place, our Earth and for the things we had come to learn to affect us as they ought. Later on we spent an afternoon on the farm of our friend who provides all our fruits and veggies. There we weeded, planted, fed (and caught) chickens, painted, mowed, played with a dog and ate some barbeque. There’s nothing like getting your hands dirty to realize you need the earth to eat!
Atop the Blue Duck Reserve.
Corey’s class also took us on journeys where we got pretty dirty: From threading a path through seals at the peninsula to washing buildings at a farm park to visiting the town sewage pond and climbing a small mountain overlooking the coast, we traveled and saw much. We also learned much by the light of the candles on our night without electricity and by the light of a fire on the beach and moon on the waves. We learned together to “try on” some radical—yet orthodox—ideas about our nature, God’s nature, and the nature of his earth. Wendell Berry’s short stories fleshed out these ideas and led us to understand how community is a first step to healing our fallen world.
We left these two weeks with some dirt under our fingernails, woodsmoke in our clothes, and hope in our hearts.
Photos: Jaci (Messiah '13), Korrie (Messiah '13), Mathias (Westmont '12) and Stacey (Westmont '12)
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