I am writing this on Earth Day 2010. Few years ago, I would not have noticed this day, or paid any attention to it, let alone write about it. So much has changed in my spiritual life that I consider earth day as important as Easter Sunday, Christmas day and many other religious holy days.
It is not because I am a new age guru, or a tree hugger or ardent environmentalist, which are usually used as pejorative terms. But, it is because, I have reflected deeply about the unfathomable beauty, mystery and magnificence of this moving, yes, moving blue dot in space which holds me up as God holds me tenderly in the palm of Her hands.
I have lived on earth 21,170 days and it has never failed to provide for me: air, water and food, the three most basic ingredients needed for my very existence. Thank you holy mother earth. As I walk gently on this holy ground, I join with prophet Isaiah this morning to say: “The whole earth proclaims the glory of God.”
Let us take a closer look at our home planet. We usually experience it as stationary, because that is what our five senses tell us. But if we could stop for a moment and reflect, we will realize that we are moving, rather spinning, and yet staying put...that is a huge mystery worthy of adoration itself.
The earth spins around her axis at the speed of 1,000 miles an hour at the equator. To spin around once takes 24 hours. The spinning makes our days and nights. But as we spin, we are also on another circle journey as we orbit round the sun. Traveling at the speed of 66,600 miles an hour, this second journey takes 365 days to complete. In the annual pilgrimage around the sun, we travel 595 million miles. Such an awareness of distance, speed and order creates a sense of awe and wonder.
Consider what it must have been like for astronaut Edgar Mitchell as he gazed down on the home planet and allowed his feelings to find words: On the return trip home, gazing 240,000 miles of space towards the stars and the planet from which I had come, I suddenly experienced the universe as intelligent, loving and harmonious. My view of the planet was a glimpse of divinity.
Perhaps what most of us need is a pilgrimage to outer space, to have our eyes and hearts opened afresh to see the sacredness behind and above the appearances and to reawaken that inner light buried beneath our limited ways of thinking.
It is worthy of note that Mitchell uses the word 'divinity' but not 'God'. God is a divisive term for many. Religions people fight over their own definitions of God and make declarations like, “My God is bigger than your God.” But, if we can speak of divinity it has an an all embracing quality to it. When we use 'divinity' instead of “God' what is at work here is 'spirituality' not 'religion.' And our goal is to evolve more each day as spiritual beings not merely as religious people.
When we see the earth as a whole, from outer space, we can clearly see the connectedness and interdependence of all of us who live upon this planet. We have created imaginary boundaries, dividing ourselves into countries and states, forgetting that in reality we are all living together, breathing the same air, drinking from the same water, eating food grown from the same earth. We share everything on this planet, whether we are conscious of it or not, with other people, and those people are our brothers and sisters. Seeing earth as a whole brings new meaning into Christian concepts like “Communion of Saints” and “Body of Christ.”
When we realize that any sense of separation we have from one another is truly an illusion, we will naturally begin to make more conscious choices in our daily lives. The simple act of preparing food, or deciding how to dispose of our refuse, can be done with the consciousness that whatever we do will affect all our brothers and sisters, no matter how far away they live, as well as the planet herself.
When we contemplate the earth in her wholeness, we see the bigger picture, which is, every one of us, living on her body. We are connected to one another in the most intimate way, because we literally share our living space. As we become aware of the reality of our interdependency, sins of racism, sexism, and homophobia will disappear and much of the discord that we see now will dissipate and we will live in a more harmonious world.
Let earth day inspire us to become holy and wholesome.
Rev. Dr. Paul Veliyathil
