“The call rings forth: imagine a new future in collaboration with Earth’s wisdom, reweave communion with kith and kin, return to the universal tree of life and liveliness.”
—Leah Rampy, PhD, Earth and Soul, p. 145
Throughout her book, Leah Rampy tells us to take time to be connected or reconnected to the kith and kin of Earth that are all around us. In her presentation at Prairiewoods’ Spirituality in the 21st Century event (April 2024), she said it is a matter of developing intention and attention as we seek to reweave these connections. She asked, “What is longing for my kinship? As you walk around your yard, your neighborhood, a nearby park, what calls out to you to pay attention? What invites you to listen, to watch, to sit with and simply be? It really is a matter of paying attention.”
I love the image of reweaving connections, of bringing back into relationship that which has been left out, those who have been disregarded, of learning new ways from kith and kin of the natural world, as well as from one another. These efforts take time, intention and attention.
The congregation where I worship has an adult class called Faith Issues. We were asked to write a “This I Believe” article. Reflecting on the presentations at Spirituality in the 21st Century and Rampy’s book, I offer my “This I Believe.” It invites us to pay attention, to sit with and watch and simply be in the midst of the wonder of creation—and perhaps invites us to reweave some of those connections.
This I Believe
“I believe that I shall see
the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.”
So proclaims the psalmist in Psalm 27:13.
This I believe—I believe that if I have my eyes and heart really open, I will see this goodness in so many places.
In spite of all the tensions in our world these days, there is goodness in people’s hearts.
I believe that if we pay attention, if we put all the ‘stuff’ of the world as we know it in perspective, there shines out the goodness of our God. As Gerard Manly Hopkins wrote in God’s Grandeur, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”
I believe it shines in the early morning rain drops on the hosta leaves, reflecting the sun as if a mirror.
I believe God’s goodness is around and shining in the smiles we give and receive, the love we share in our actions and in our world.
I believe Gods’ goodness shines in the first radishes harvested in the early spring, in fresh asparagus, in the first strawberries of the season that drip their luscious juice down my chin and in the last of the summer’s bounty of tomatoes.
I believe God’s goodness shines in the work of those who labor for climate justice. I believe that if we can all learn to truly love our Mother Earth, as we learn to care for her and all her creatures, this world can be filled with the goodness of God in the land of the living. I believe that if we put aside our own egos and learn from our Indigenous brothers and sisters, if we listen to what the Earth has to teach us, we will become this goodness that shines in and through us like “shining from shook foil” and we can create a healthier world for all to inhabit.
—Rose Blank