Earth Day was yesterday, and my mind has been busy thinking about our relationship with the earth, and the plants and animals that inhabit it. Our Book of Common Worship has a wonderful prayer in it, written by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky:
Lord, may we love all your creation,
all the earth and every grain of sand in it.
May we love every leaf, every ray of your light.
May we love the animals;
You have given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
Let us not trouble it;
let us not harass them,
let us not deprive them of their happiness,
let us not work against your intent.
For we acknowledge unto you that all is like an ocean,
all is flowing and blending,
and that to withhold any measure of love
from anything in your universe
is to withhold that same measure from you. Amen.
I must confess that I have some difficulty putting my heart into this prayer as it relates to mosquitoes, poison ivy, and viruses, but I also must confess that my understanding of all the ways God’s world works together is a mystery to me. I am challenged to remember always that “the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it; the world, and those who live in it.”
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