Hi folks I hope you are well and that you are easing your way into the new year. This Sunday we will meet at Platform 2 on Tynemouth Station at 7.30, I hope that you can make it?
This week we begin a new series of reflections that will stretch out over the year with other themes and one offs. After a good look at the bible over the last year or so, we think it’s time to engage in other areas of life that are prominent within our society, some we have tackled before but other themes will be new.
The next series will focus on ‘A question of…’ So we already have a strong list of issues we want to look at, these include, race, gender, creativity, nature, law and order, the inner me, human, war, ageism too name but a few!
But you may also have issues that you would like us to tackle, so that will be part of our discussion on Sunday night. Our hope is that some of you would contribute to writing some of these, again I will be asking you on Sunday if you would like to do that. It may also be that you know someone in a particular field that you think would be good to ask to write a reflection for us.
Tonight I want us to think about this: A question of ‘earthiness’! This springs out of a conversation before Christmas and I have done a bit of a reflection on it for something else I was doing.
Heading into Christmas I was involved in a facebook conversation that led me to ponder on spirituality and earthiness.
Because we were in advent It led me to wonder about the star in the nativity story, there is nothing like looking up at the stars when there is little or no light pollution.
Stars are huge celestial bodies made mostly of hydrogen and helium that produce light and heat from the churning nuclear forges inside their cores.
Aside from our sun, the dots of light we see in the sky are all light-years from Earth.
They are the building blocks of galaxies, of which there are billions in the universe. It’s impossible to know how many stars exist, but astronomers estimate that in our Milky Way galaxy alone, there are about 300 billion.
A star’s light travels through the universe echoing through time and space… it’s mind melting!
As I have been pondering on all this over the course of the last few weeks, you begin to see that nature has a full part to play in the divine shakeup of our existence. We also see it all over scripture, right from creation in genesis through to Revelation and a new heaven and new earth. It’s fleshed out in our very skin and bone. And the ultimate mash up of this earthiness is seen in Jesus the God man… The word became flesh!
Back to the conversation on facebook… In that conversation a mate used a phrase that captured my imagination. I have to say I was ignorant of it, but I really do love it!
It is the word ‘Chthonic’ or ‘Chthulucene’… (try saying that with a stammer!) It’s about being earthed – in touch with the planet – grounded. But it’s also about being connected to what’s happening with the earth. It’s about drawing aspects of our spirituality from our connectedness with creation.
This concept got me thinking and I realised that it is connected to lent, we talk about plants and animals dying, we talk about stars dying, we talk about our lives ending, we place a finality to life. It can feel like life is full of dead ends and full stops, that that is that! But then I was reminded of these words that we use at the start of lent “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
What if there is more going on with the divine’s connection with the universe, the earth, and all that makes life happen here on earth and beyond?
What if the multi-species, multi-origins, and infinite potential of the universe, including the potential that the beauty of humanity can be cultivated, and can continue long after we have passed through this life?
So the conversation led me to these words by Lisa Fazio:
“The Chthulucene is derived from the word Chthonic. A word for ancient, underworld, and “subterranean”. The place where all life is birthed from. Where we emerge from the humus, the compost, the mycelia (the constellation of stars underground), all that has ever bled, all the tears that have fallen, all the deconstruction, all of the bones, and the hot sun that burns in the centre of the Earth.
I don’t like the new age cliche “we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” I don’t want to leave, escape, go to heaven. I want to be here now and always.
I am an embodied being, married to matter, having a divine experience with light, carbon, gravity, density, the swords of love, and the sacred heart. I am making compost. When I die I want to turn into soil, hopefully beneath a cherry tree so my blood can feed its sap. The Chthulucene turns our bodies into sap.”
In other words, there is relationality all the way back, and all the way in, natural forces and human forces became intertwined and related. And so I wonder if we have lost within our spirituality our connectedness to the earth and the cycle of life and death.
As you ponder on all that, listen to this song by David Benjamin Blower and here are some questions.
Questions
Think back to the last time you stared into space and looked at the stars, what does it feel like?
In what ways have you considered scripture and the natural world as being linked? What examples from scripture can you give?
What do you think of these words from Lisa Fazio “The place where all life is birthed from. Where we emerge from the humus, the compost, the mycelia (the constellation of stars underground), all that has ever bled, all the tears that have fallen, all the deconstruction, all of the bones, and the hot sun that burns in the centre of the Earth”?
What do you think she means by these words “we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” I don’t want to leave, escape, go to heaven. I want to be here now and always?
What about this? I am an embodied being, married to matter, having a divine experience with light, carbon, gravity, density, the swords of love, and the sacred heart. I am making compost. When I die I want to turn into soil, hopefully beneath a cherry tree so my blood can feed its sap. The Chthulucene turns our bodies into sap.”
What does it mean for us if natural forces and human forces are intertwined and related?
How do you think this could change our thinking about nature as followers of Jesus?
What kind of ‘A question of…’ would you want to add?
Peace, Rob
Image by AndreasAux from Pixabay https://tinyurl.com/es2zr7ra
Rob Wylie is the founder of BeachcomberFX and guides its leadership team. He has worked in the North East for over 20 years and has vast experience from various roles he has held. He has a passion for Fresh Expressions of Church and Pioneer Ministry as well as beer, beaches and Miniature Schnauzers.