Creative God

THE CREATIVE GOD

How often have you heard it said that you do not have to go to church to worship God - you can worship God in the garden?

I usually reply with the words "but do you?", since I obviously have a vested interest in promoting church

attendance else I would be out of a job!

However, there is more than a grain of truth in the suggestion that God can be found through nature.

This British love for nature reflected in the care of our gardens and pets, and the desire to retire to a dream cottage in the country, probably reflects our basic Celtic origins.

The Celts lived on the fringes of the British Isles in Scotland, Ireland, Wales and parts of England in Devon, Cornwall and Northumbria. They were essentially a rural race who lived in remote places close to nature. The cry of the sea birds, the barking of the seals and the buzzing of the insects were often the only disturbance of their tranquil existence.

This personal appreciation of nature was further reinforced by the religious belief of their pagan ancestors who worshipped rivers, forests and hills as being the dwelling places of their gods. Some Celts took great care not to pollute the rivers or damage plant life since these possessed sacred qualities. Incidentally, the

same behaviour pattern and religious belief are still evident in the aborigines of Australia. The religion of the pagans was essentially pantheistic. In other words, they believed that God was identifiable with the natural forces of nature such as wind, rain and sun and with natural substances such as the earth and plant life.

Both their personal experience of nature and their religious pagan inheritance enabled the Celts to

appreciate fully the biblical story of creation. That refrain in the story that "God saw that it was very good" rang very true with their day to day experience.

The Celts took the pantheism of their day and baptised into Christianity so that it became panentheism. In other words, they believed that God's presence was revealed in and through the natural world.

Hence St. Ninian, who founded the monastery at Whithorn in Strathclyde in the sixth century, declared

that the fruit of all study is "to perceive the eternal word of God reflected in every plant and insect, every bird and animal, every man and woman".

And St. Columbanus, the Irish monk of the sixth century who founded monasteries in France, Switzerland and Italy once said: "Understand the creation if you wish to know the creator.....for those who wish to know the great deep must first review the natural world".

Incidentally, it is interesting to note in passing that St. Francis of Assissi once visited St. Columbanus' monastery at Bobbio in Northern Italy, and one cannot but wonder whether this was instrumental in influencing his attitude towards creation and the animal kingdom.

When St. Patrick was questioned about his faith, by two princesses who were the daughters of the high

king of Laoghaire, he is said to have replied with this great credal affirmation of creation:

"Our God, God of all men,

God of heaven and earth, seasons and rivers,

God of sun and moon, of all the stars,

God of high mountains and lowly valleys,

God over heaven, and in heaven and under heaven,

He has his dwelling in heaven and earth and sea

And in all things that are in them.

He inspires all things, he quickens all things,

He is over all things, he supports all things.

He makes the light of the sun to shine,

He surrounds the moon and the stars,

He has made wells in the arid earth,

Placed dry islands in the sea,

He has a Son co-eternal with himself -

And the Holy Spirit breathes in them:

Not separate are the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit".

The response of the princesses to this outburst of theological prose is not recorded! Nevertheless, it does illustrate the Celtic strong belief in a creative God who is to be known in and through his creation. The . natural world for the Celts was the window into the being of God.

This key feature of Celtic spirituality is well expressed in a prayer by a contemporary Celt, George MacCloud, the founder of the Iona Community when he prays:

"Invisible we see You, Christ above us.

With earthly eyes we see above us

Clouds or sunshine, grey or bright.

But with the eye of faith we know You reign;

Instinct in the sun ray;

Speaking in the storm,

Warming and moving all creation, Christ above us.

Invisible we see You, Christ beneath us.

With earthly eyes we see beneath us

Stones and dust and dross,

Fit subjects for the analyst table.

But with the eye of faith, we know you uphold.

In You all things consist and hang together:

The very atom is light energy,

The grass is vibrant

The rocks pulsate.

All is in flux; turn but a stone and an angel moves.

Underneath are the everlasting arms.

Unknowable we know You, Christ beneath us".

This sense of the presence of God being revealed through the natural world is something we are in great danger of losing in our concrete jungles of cities and towns of today. Our skyscrapers tend to proclaim "Glory to man in the High Street" rather than "Glory to God in the highest".

However, slowly but surely human kind is learning to respect the natural world and to realise that we are but stewards of the created universe. We are beginning to care for our environment and protect its

endangered species. We are beginning to perceive that they have a life of their own and are as much a

part of the created universe as you and I. We are beginning to reverence the fragile life of this planet of which we are but a small part.

True, we still have a long way to go before we are able to perceive God in and through his creation, as expressed in this Hebridean poem recorded by Alexander Carmichael at the end of the last century.

"There is no plant in the ground

But is full of virtue.

There is no form in the strand

But is full of his blessing.

There is no life in the sea,

There is no creature in the river,

There is nought in the firmament,

But proclaims his goodness.

There is no bird on the wing,

There is no star in the sky,

There is nothing beneath the sun,

But proclaims his goodness."

The value of natural theology is being rediscovered in our own age as astronomers and physicists are seen to be pointing to something beautiful and mysterious at the further extremities of space and at the very heart of matter. They are helping us to regain something of the sense of awe and wonder with which our ancestors looked at the world about them and gazed up at the heavens. A recovery of the Celts ability to find God's love and glory reflected through the natural world is going to be essential if we are to save our planet from environmental destruction.

At the centre of the Celtic cross is a circle which represents the world. Through it, the shaft of the cross reaches from earth to heaven as a permanent reminder of their belief in a creative God who is revealed in and through the natural world.