What I have learned about nature

Sometimes having a physical disability can make you feel voiceless. It can make you feel like nobody sees or hears you. People either treat you like a child and treat your ideas like childish fantasies, or they ignore you and pretend don’t exist. When you have a physical disability, it can be difficult to put into words what you need to people who have never experienced what it is like to need a wheelchair or need help in the restroom or be unable to feed yourself. It can honestly feel like trying to talk to a brick wall. People with disabilities like me need advocates to fight for them. They need skilled individuals to explain to the world their needs and desires when we are unable to ourselves. They need them to be their voices. This feeling of voicelessness creates a deep connection between the environment and me. We live in a fragile world that cannot speak against the destruction wrought by human hands in their pursuit of more and more. Trees being hewn by angry axes and trampled by bulldozers cannot cry out, “enough!” Animals stripped of their homes for petty greed and hunted to extinction for sport or the acquisition of meaningless baubles cannot scream, “no more!” Just like the physically disabled need advocates to be their voices, our environment, our fragile world, needs advocates to be its collective voice. For too long Christians have ignored or fought against the world created by God. Now it is time for them to be at the forefront of the fight.

            As Christians, we believe God created the world “ex nihilo” or out of nothing. Out of sheer creativity and love, God stepped into the void of darkness and non-being and brought forth the world. Each aspect of the world from trees and flowers to animals and human beings, was tenderly crafted by the hand of God in the same way that an artist tenderly creates their masterpiece. When you look at the environment and behold its awe-inspiring beauty, you are looking at the very tapestry of the divine. In his grace and love, God gave dominion of the world to human beings. Many Christians have gone astray in caring for the environment because they think to have dominion  over it means they can manipulate and take from it without consequence. They think it is their right to take all that is to be taken from the world without giving anything back in return. Yet, true dominion means responsibly guiding and caring for the environment in the same way that God guides and cares for human beings. It means remembering that the world we live in is ultimately a gift from God and belongs to him. To forget these things and brutally harvest the planet, is to spit in the face of God.  The true Christian knows these things and, therefore, leads the fight to protect the environment—to fight to give a voice to the voiceless.