You mean 'protect' the title 'environment'?
[A letter from an Indian chief]
How dare you buy and sell the greenness of the sky and the warmth of the earth?
Fresh air and streams that glisten in sunlight that do not belong to us
Is it that you can buy with money?
Every part of this land is holy to our people.
Not a single pine needle glistening in the morning dew, not even the sand of the stream, nor the moss of the dense forest,
All the hills and the buzzing of insects,
According to the experience of our people, it is holy.
We are a part of the earth and the earth is a part of us.
Fragrant flowers are our brothers
Deer and horses and even great eagles are all our brothers.
And the rough rocky mountains, the green of the meadows, the warmth of a foal,
And all people are one family.
The sparkling water flowing through the mountains and fields is not just water for us.
We know that white people don't understand our customs.
You are the mother earth and the brother sky
They think of it as buying and selling like jewelry or leather.
But that greed will swallow up all the land
In the end, we will be left with only the desert.
As we taught our descendants
Teach your descendants too.
The earth is the mother of all of us.
All good things come from the mother earth,
that it affects their children.
The thread of life is not man-made.
Man is just one strand of them.
But the effect he has on the thread of life is on himself.
we are our God
I know you are like your God.
And I think you'll find out sooner or later.
The earth is precious to God.
polluting the ground
It is blasphemy against the Creator of all these things.
We can never understand.
Bisons slaughtered for no reason and horses tamed,
A thick forest cut down by white people,
Seeing the beautiful flowers trampled on by the talking power cord
I cannot understand you.
Where did those forests go? All gone.
Where did the vultures go? All gone.
When life disappears like this, all that remains is a fight.
[The term ‘environment’, is it appropriate?]
Last June 5th was the UN's 'World Environment Day'. We use the word 'environment' casually, but people who are deeply interested in environmental issues and feeling a crisis do not use the term environment very well. Because the word environment itself is an anthropocentric term. The word environment means to put human beings at the center, and to see nature around or in the background. However, man is only a part of and living as a part in the great whole of nature. Humans are the main characters, and nature does not exist as extras.
This world in which we live, this universe created by God, is interrelated and interdependent with God and all creation. For example, even on a single sheet of paper, we can see clouds, hear the sound of water, and hear birdsong. Paper is made of wood. Trees cannot grow without rain. Rain cannot fall without clouds. Therefore, on a single sheet of paper, we can see clouds, rain, water drops, and trees, and we can also hear the sound of water and birds chirping in the trees.
Not only that, but soil, sunlight, air, moonlight, and dew are all contained in a single sheet of paper. In the way we look, and in the way we walk, our parents sometimes see themselves, their steps. Don't we too sometimes see the faces and steps of our parents in the faces and steps of our brothers and sisters? Teachers who have children will often see themselves in the faces and behaviors of those children when they were young. In this way, we have our parents. Not only my parents, but also my parents and my ancestors who made them exist. And above all, within us is the God who is the source of the existence that made all these people possible.
It is very important to see the world and the universe as a community in which everyone is in harmony with each other. When we realize that in the bosom of God the Creator, not only us Christians, but not only humans, but all nature, including animals, plants, and microorganisms, exist together, we will only be able to conquer nature in order to satisfy our anthropocentric greed. Because you will be freed from the selfishness you have seen.
Not only that, but it will also bring about a change in the selfish and greedy view of human beings, who viewed neighbors whom God has allowed to live in love with each other as objects of competition and exploitation.
[Are humans the protectors of nature?]
And although we commonly use the word ‘environmental protection’, there is something to think about with this expression ‘protection’. Who is protecting whom? As long as humans do not harm nature, nature exists in harmony with itself. In God's protection and providence.
The mode of existence of this world is not structured in a way that humans protect nature. It is a structure that nature protects and embraces humans. There is a problem with humans refusing that protection and damaging it at will. If man refuses to protect nature, eventually nature will reject him. That is why the terms 'environment' and 'protection' themselves are being challenged these days. Instead, we use the terms ‘ecology’ or ‘ecosystem’, but the word ecology is also challenged. While it is important to respect the ecology, that is, the way of life of all living things, including animals and plants as well as microbes, everything that exists, including living things as well as non-living things, even a single stone, is what God calls it “to be there”. There is a reason for “doing it”. Therefore, humans should not tamper with nature.
So, there are those who argue that we should use the word ‘nature’ rather than ‘environment’ or ‘ecology’. It is also said that the proper expression should be ‘nature conservation’ or ‘nature conservation’ rather than ‘nature conservation’. Although the word 'preservation' or 'conservation' also contains the meaning of 'to protect', it is considered more appropriate than the word 'protection' in that it contains the meaning of maintaining 'as it is' without tampering with nature. is.
[“Let nothing be thrown away”]
If you look at today's text, the words that Jesus said to collect the remaining pieces after performing the miracle of five fish and not to throw away are recorded. “Let nothing be wasted.” Although it has not received attention for a long time, this word is receiving new attention in relation to the issues of environmental protection and nature conservation that we generally talk about.
Jesus awakened the providence of God with us through nature. He said that God will clothe the grass that grows in the field, and He said that God also feeds the birds of the air. It is said that even a leaf of grass and even a small bird are precious lives that God Himself clothed and nurtured. Considering Jesus' view of nature, I think that it was a very Jesus-like behavior to end the case with the words to gather what is left of what we eat and not to throw away anything.
In our Christianity, we use the word environmental protection or nature conservation, but we also use the expression ‘recovery of creation order’ in theological terms. Restoration of creation order, I think we Christians need to use this term often. This is because, in this term, damage to nature is to harm God's order of creation, and we believe that it contains an active meaning that we must restore the damaged order of creation. In addition, the term ‘restoration of creation order’ reminds Christians who believe in God’s creation of the heavens and earth to see this problem not only as an environmental problem or as a natural problem, but also as a matter of faith. I do not think it is unreasonable to interpret the act of digging up and damaging the beautiful world that God has created as a religious crime that destroys God's work at will.
If we do not respect nature and harm it at will, nature will give us precisely the consequences. Restoring the creative order is still a small problem that many people can't change for the slightest inconvenience, but if we don't solve this problem now, it will be a matter of life or death in the next generation may be.