Contemplating Our Crucified Earth and Coming Home to the Incarnation in Creation

Contemplating Our Crucified Earth

And excerpt from Care for Creation: A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth by Ilia Delio, OSF, Keith Warner, OFM, and Pamela Wood

Contemplation is essential to understanding how to follow in the footprints of Francis and lead a life of reflective action. Contemplation in the Franciscan tradition is an essential part of an engaged spirituality; it asks us to really look at the world with seeing eyes. It involves withdrawing from the world in reflection, yes, but not to escape from the world or its problems. Rather, this stepping back offers a chance to take a penetrating look at the world as it truly is, in all its beauty and gift as well as its pain and injustice. Contemplation involves looking critically at the underlying structures of injustice and finding a way to be part of their transformation; it is anything that helps us to “unveil the illusions that

masquerade as reality and reveal the reality behind the masks.” Yet contemplation also nurtures our spirit, and out of this inner fullness our actions become like a sacrament in this world—cocreating with God and making the spirit visible in our hurting world. Contemplation ignited Francis’ heart, which led to his profound conversion and his commitment to living a penitent life. His kinship with all of creation was an occasion for joy, but it also brought with it grief and pain at the injustices suffered by that which he loved. This familial love for all of life ultimately compelled him to act with compassion and to promote peacemaking and justice in ways that often challenged the power structures of his time.

Looking at contemplation from this perspective, what does it mean for us as followers of Francis to take a contemplative approach to our modern-day ecological crises? If we dare to look and really see, we encounter Creation crucified—at our hands. This is truly a heartbreaking and terrifying reality, almost impossible to bear without the strong spiritual grounding that contemplation offers. If Francis were to walk our earth today, he would encounter for the first time his Sister

Mother Earth, Brother Wind, and Sister Water polluted and desecrated, the creatures he loved endangered and some gone forever. Francis never experienced this type of ecological devastation since it occurred largely after the Industrial Revolution, yet the way he lived his life can teach us how to contemplate such realities and then find the courage to act.

The story of Francis’ encounter with a leper offers powerful guidance here. In his era, lepers were looked upon with scorn. They suffered intense social stigma, and their affliction was often seen as a punishment from God. In his youth Francis was no exception in his disdain for the lepers living on the outskirts of his town; in fact, he avoided them even more vigorously than others did. Perhaps their pain and disfigurement was too much for him to bear, so he assumed the cultural messages of his time, which helped justify this collective “looking away” of society from the lepers’ plight. However, early in his conversion God’s love shone through to Francis in his encounter with a leper, and it profoundly changed his life. Soon after he went to live with the lepers, caring for them as his own kin and experiencing true joy in this service.

Francis’ transformed heart was what made the difference; he saw in the leper’s eyes that God “humbly bends low in love and hides in weak and fragile forms.” This transformed understanding flowed from a heart that was grounded in love and the knowledge of his relatedness to his brother leper through their common Creator. How can contemplation help us do as Francis did—face harsh realities and injustices in our world despite the pain and discomfort we might experience in the face of that suffering? How can a contemplative heart help us to discover again our love for the family of creation and help us to find the courage to act in its defense? Like Francis in his encounter with the leper, we must learn how to gaze upon our damaged, disfigured and disregarded Earth with contemplative eyes, for when we hold within our hearts the pain of our world long enough for it to transform us, we discover the courage and hope needed to act on behalf of creation.

In the same way that Francis’ fear and apathy caused him to shun the leper early in his life, we humans—in our collective inaction—shun our ailing Earth and the plight of all her living creatures. Why is this? What keeps us from taking action to heal our world? This chapter focuses on some of the obstacles that prevent us from doing our part to care for our crucified Earth: denial, apathy, disempowerment and despair. In the guided meditation, the process of “breathing through” is offered as a practical tool to use whenever we encounter difficult feelings—from a disagreement with a friend to the powerlessness of the huge and complex ecological crises we now face. Individual actions are discussed that can help us to assess and begin the process of changing our individual contributions to global climate change: They begin to “lay the groundwork” for rebuilding the house of creation. Group reflection questions then encourage us to examine what prevents us from joining with Francis to “rebuild the oikos.” What are the challenges each of us face when contemplating difficult realities and the need to take action? Fundamental to the approach of many of the world’s great spiritual traditions, and surely to Francis’ approach to life, is the recognition that we are not separate, isolated entities, but are interrelated to all of creation.

Care for Creation A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth Ilia Delio, OSF, Keith Warner, OFM and Pamela Wood

Coming Home to the Incarnation in Creation A Guided Meditation

And excerpt from Care for Creation: A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth by Ilia Delio, OSF, Keith Warner, OFM, and Pamela Wood

Saint Francis of Assisi loved the earth; he walked respectfully over the land as holy ground. When he walked over rocks, “he would walk with fear and reverence out of love for Him who is called ‘the Rock.’” We, too, are called to tread lightly on our planet, always supported by our Earth home, which has been created to sustain us in every moment.

Now bring your attention to your breath. Simply notice your breath, with no need to change it in any way. When your mind wanders, gently nudge it back to the breath, letting it rest there. Let your mind stay passive yet alert as your body begins to relax.

Bring to your awareness the fact that your breath happens by itself. Even when you are not mindful of it, the Spirit of Life breathes through you in every moment of your life. Spend some time now nurturing an awareness of this miracle of breath.

Now bring to mind the air that extends out from your breath, moving beyond you to fill the whole sky, joining with the great winds that encircle our planet. From the oceans to the deserts to the wind over high alpine meadows, our home planet is refreshed by this lifegiving air, which moves across its surface in currents of wind and weather. Our thin layer of atmosphere miraculously protects the fragility of life on this planet.

With Francis, we can dance with Brother Wind, and gaze upon Sister Moon and the stars,

contemplating the vastness of God revealed to us in our universe home. We can be mindful that this precious air connects us to one another, across the globe and through the ages. This same air we breathe was breathed by our ancestors, by saints and sinners throughout time, by Francis himself. It will continue to circulate in this way until our children and great-great-grandchildren also breathe it through their lungs, so that they, too, may be filled with life.

Now picture the sun wherever it is in the sky. Each morning our planet turns toward the sun, soaking in its warmth and suckling its life energy. In each second our great, generous sun offers up four million tons of itself, transformed into radiant light and energy daily, free for all of life on Earth to use. Green plants have evolved to take in this energy from the sun and convert it to food and energy for themselves. By doing so, plants feed all life on this planet as they make that energy available to humans and other mammals to ingest when we eat. All life depends on energy, and all energy has the sun as its ultimate source. With Francis, we, too, revel in the miracle of Brother Sun, whose life-giving energy courses through our own bodies too: warming our hearts, igniting our

dreams and fueling our work in the world.

Now bring to mind the element of water in our blue-green planet home; the great oceans that cover two-thirds of its surface, the streams and rivers and lakes. Picture, too, the huge glaciers and snow-capped mountains that hold our water in reserve for us, releasing it slowly over time for the use of all living beings, and the ice caps that cool our poles and play such a key role in the circulation of air and water throughout our planet. Give thanks for the water cycle that draws all this water into our atmosphere, circulating the water across the world, bringing the cleansing rains that feed all of life. We take in this water: It composes 70 percent of our bodies and is contained in each and every cell and in our blood and our tears.

Those who lived with Francis tell of him reverencing water by choosing to wash his hands “where the water would not be trampled underfoot after washing.” With Francis, we marvel at the wonder of water and honor the lifeblood of our bodies and our bounteous earth. Like all living creatures, we humans need food, a home and a family, and none other exists for us or any other living creature than our planet Earth. Walking with Francis through God’s house, honoring each

of the elements of creation, we are awed by the amazing hospitality of our planet home.

We prodigal sons and daughters can learn to fall in love again with our planet home, and come to more fully appreciate our utter dependence on its bounty. We can follow Francis’ example of remembering that the earth is not our home alone, but is first and foremost God’s house. We can build anew bonds of love, care, concern and companionship with not only our human brothers and sisters, but with the house of creation that sustains us and is kin to us all. We can walk in God’s Incarnation daily, remembering that the face of the Divine shines through each and every thing, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Through creation, the ineffable is made tangible, and we can sense the radiance of God in the beauty of the natural order.

Care for Creation A Franciscan Spirituality of the Earth Ilia Delio, OSF, Keith Warner, OFM and Pamela Wood