God, Scripture, and Creationtide

A regular visitor to the website offered these thoughts on creation and scripture, appropriate for creationtide, which runs until 4 October (prayer and worship resources here).

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Some years ago a small group met for a short and simple service at Greenacres, a Shaftesbury residential care home in Mildenhall near Marlborough (sadly now closed). This monthly gathering was usually led by one of the local Clergy but sometimes by one of the group. 

Peter Morgan, who worships at St Mary’s in Marlborough, led a Service that focused on our responsibility to God’s creation.  He included these words, which are of great relevance to Creationtide:

“The Psalmist says that we human beings have dominion over all earth’s creatures.  Unfortunately we have taken this to mean domination.

“Our selfishness in seeing everything in relation to human beings has not been balanced by the realism that all God’s creatures matter to God so that, for instance, every decision we make on land-use should involve consideration of the species who are at home there and who cannot present their own case”.

He led the prayers on the same theme:

“Generous God, You have given us so much that is good but we have responded to Your gifts like spoilt children, loving them only for what we could get out of them; we have grabbed greedily at the earth’s resources, at land and forest, at fish and animals and birds, with no thought for the future of our children or the children of the poor.

 “We are sorry loving God.  Please forgive us and guide us into better ways of living in our environment before it is too late.

“We pray for those who work and campaign for a better stewardship of the earth’s resources.  Help us to support them by doing what we can and grant us the maturity to treat Your world with the respect it deserves.”