It may well be that a rediscovery of gratitude will begin to undermine attitudes of dominance, entitlement, exploitation and self-preserving greed that cause such damage and loss to our environment. Creation is gift; creation care is stewardship, that protective care of our irreplaceable world.
And this from Jurgen Moltmann:
"It is for this that human beings are created — for the feast of creation, which praises the eternal inexhaustible God…This song of praise was sung before the appearance of human beings, is sung outside the sphere of human beings, and will be sung even after human beings have — perhaps — disappeared from the planet…The human being is not the meaning and purpose of the world."
Quoted in the wonderful book by Belden Lane, Ravished by Beauty. The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality. (OUP: Oxford, 2011, page 83).
Putting us thus in our place, in humility, this prayer: GIVE us grateful hearts, our Father, for all thy mercies, and make us mindful of the needs of others; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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