Creator and Creation

I'm back after a few days of retreat, a couple more days at a national church meeting, and a weekend with friends. With one of the best weeks of the fall in terms of weather I was able to walk and pray out-of-doors while on retreat, and the time with friends was at their riverside farm. The church meeting was excellent --all about faith and the natural world -- but it was inside the Church House tower in Toronto.

I left busy and noisy Toronto with my wife Ruth and travelled several hours to a rugged area of Ontario where there is blessed and almost palpable silence. The next morning I walked to the river where I saw otters moving sinuously through the water. They came so close to shore that I could see the fish they were diving for in their mouths. They were in such constant motion that it took ten minutes to establish there were five of them in total. Their disappearance and reappearance was like a delightful magic trick.

Seeing these otters reminded me of the Celtic mystics of ancient times. These saints often lived as hermits near a stream or pond. In one of the legends St. Kevin was able to live alone and praise God because a sympathetic otter came by regularly with a salmon for him to eat. It is a lovely tale of co-existence, although the salmon might not agree.

In our earnestness as Christians to respond to environmental crises it is important to pay attention to the creatures God the Creator has brought into being and simply delight in them. After a couple of days of strategizing and discussing direction for the United Church on creation I had a blessed opportunity to enjoy God's complex and eye-opening world.