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Creational Devotional | Day Three
Day Three: Land and Plants
Today’s Reading
(Genesis 1: verses 9-13)
And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into
one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God
called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he
called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, “Let
the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of
every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it
was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed
of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it.
And God saw that it was good. And there was
evening and there was morning, the third day.
Prayer
Dear God,
From the smallest seed to the largest mountain, You are the Creator
of everything that is. Help us to see You, others, and ourselves
more clearly through Your creation, and teach us to love what we see.
Amen.
Meditation Options
(1) Activity for young children to adults.
Please read the Bible reading and the prayer out loud. Then gather
together outside (if possible) around a tree in your yard, at your church,
in a local park, etc. -- a tree that you find to be special. (If
this is not possible, please have every member of your family/group bring a leaf,
twig, or seed to the gathering area today. Adapt the following reading to
focus on these plant parts.) Share a brief time of
silence as you observe the tree. Remember to use all your senses
of observation -- feel the trunk of the tree, look for insects that may
be living on the bark, smell some leaves, feel the roots and earth under
your feet, listen to the sound of leaves and branches, etc. Tell
your family members what you’ve observed about the tree. You may
want to draw or write about the tree later. If you would like, you
may stay outside while you read any of the following.
(2) Reading for children to adults.
(A reading from Hosea, chapter 14, verses 5b-7)
"...[God] shall strike root like the forests of Lebanon.
His shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive tree,
and his fragrance like that of Lebanon.
[God’s people] shall again live beneath his shadow, they shall flourish
as a garden . . .. "
Like the tree that you are observing, and the trees of Lebanon,
all trees have as much life underground as they do above the ground.
Their deep rootedness in the earth allows them to stand above the Earth
and produce fruits, shade, much beauty, and homes for many animals.
Further, it is very difficult for most mountains, big and small, to exist
without the help of the roots of many, many trees and plants, which keep
rocks and soil in place. When we ask ourselves how can God be like
a Lebanon cedar or an olive tree, part of our answer must consider the
parts of God that we can’t see. In your opinion, how might God be
like a tree? How is God like a tree in the Hosea writing? How
might God even be like a rock? (If you have time, look at Psalm 28:1
for clues to this latter question.) Why is it that nature helps us
to describe God?
(3) Reading for older children and adults.
(From Julian of Norwich, Showings, tr. and intro. by Edmund
Colledge and James Walsh, Classics of Western Spirituality, London: SPCK,
1979; reprinted in Andrew Linzey and Tom Regan, eds., Love the Animals:
Meditations and Prayers, New York: Crossroad, 1988, p. 10.)
“And in this [God] showed me something small, no bigger than a hazel-nut, lying in the palm of my hand, and I perceived that it was as round as any ball. I looked at this and thought: What can this be? And I was given this general answer: It is everything which is made. I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that it was so little that it could suddenly fall into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God. In this little thing I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that he loves it, the third is that God preserves it. But what is that to me? It is that God is the Creator and the lover and the protector.”
(4) Reading for older children to adults.
(Reprinted from The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita
Sutra (1988) by Thich Nhat Hanh with permission of Parallax Press, Berkeley,
California.)
“If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating
in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without
rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper.
If we look even more deeply, we can see the sunshine, the logger who cut
the tree, the wheat that became his bread, and the logger's father and
mother. Without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.
In fact, we cannot point to one thing that is not here – time, space, the
earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the
river, the heat, the mind. Everything co-exists with this sheet of
paper. So we can say that the cloud and the paper 'inter-are.'
We cannot just be by ourselves alone; we have to inter-be with every other
thing.”
Can you see the cloud floating in this sheet of paper? Can you see the living wheat plant in a piece of bread?
Growing Prayer
(One person:) Dear God,
As the winds continue to caress the waters of creation,
As the waves of the sea crash loudly,
And the hills and trees stand strong together,
All expressing thanks to You,
So we thank You for Your continued presence throughout the entire family
of creation.
(Everyone:) And God saw that creation was good! Amen.