Green Saturdays: Care for the Earth is Care for the Poor

“Damage to the environment makes the life of the poor…particularly unbearable.” 
Pope Benedict, August 27, 2008

Today, on this particular Saturday when my eleven year old daughter is having a yard sale to raise money to buy chickens and goats for families in Africa (through World Vision and Y-Malawi), I want to use my "Green Saturday" reflection to make a connection that we often miss.   Nobody is more reliant on a good, healthy earth than those who live closest to it.

No wonder the scriptures speak of the ultimate salvation of God in such all encompassing terms:

When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is none,
and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the Lord will answer them,
I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
I will open rivers on the bare heights,b
and fountains in the midst of the valleys;
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
I will put in the wilderness the cedar,
the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive;
I will set in the desert the cypress,
the plane and the pine together,
so that all may see and know,
all may consider and understand,
that the hand of the Lord has done this,
the Holy One of Israel has created it.

Is 41:17-20, (NRSV)

And a quote from the good Bishop NT Wright about how creation and redemption "play" a melody together:

“We must acknowledge that beauty, whether in the natural order or within human creation, is sometimes so powerful that it evokes our very deepest feelings of awe, wonder, gratitude, and reverence…beauty is both something that calls us out of ourselves and something which appeals to feelings deep within us...We say that the present world is the real one, and that it’s in bad shape but expecting to be repaired. We tell, in other words…the story of a good Creator longing to put the world back into good order for which it was designed…[a story of a God] who completes what he has begun, a God who comes to the rescue of those who seem lost and enslaved in the world the way it now is... “…the present world really is a signpost to a larger beauty, a deeper truth. It really is the authentic manuscript of one part of a masterpiece. The question is, What is the whole masterpiece like, and how can we begin to hear the music in the way it was intended?”