The Lush Garden of Human Idolatry

Last updated on: October 2, 2019 at 9:17 am by Anne Kennedy

The Lush Garden of Human Idolatry 2019-10-02T09:17:23-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I missed the boat on the Apologizing to Plants moment a few weeks ago. I saw it blowing around on twitter but there were so many things on twitter that day I couldn’t focus, and so other people said more helpful things about it, and I moved on with my life. But the organizer of the time thought it expedient to explain himself further, so that we might all observe the inherent reasonableness of bringing a lot of house plants into a chapel service, arranging them over some potting soil, and then reaching down within the soul to, “attend creatively to the end of our lives and respond to our ways of feeling.” Which seems an invitation to me to try again.

The liturgist, one Claudio Carvalhaes who is currently teaching “Creating Rituals in Community: The Work of Mourning The Earth and Extractivism” and “Ripping Earth Apart: A Ritual/Liturgical Response” at Union this fall, explained the service this way to his students:

Many of us have a disconnected relationship with nature and relate to nature as outside things, as “it.” Today we will try to create new connections by talking to the plants, soil, and rocks and confess how we have related with them. Confessions are also forms of mending relations, healing, and changing our ways. We are all manifestations of the sacredness of life and the “we” of God’s love is way beyond the human, so let us confess to “each other” including plants, soil, rocks, rivers, forests.

Carvalhaes uses his piece in Sojourners to articulate a vague idea about confession, and to pull out a few verses from the Bible about all of creation calling out, groaning even, for its redemption. Creation speaks, he says, and therefore has some inherent subjective quality that invites us to speak back. Wrapped up in it all, of course, is Christianity’s oppressive colonial proclivity towards “Empire” and so Carvalhaes lightly flutters from “The heavens declare the glory of God,” to, “This understanding demands a reinterpretation of democracy. When are we going to consider the seeds and the panther and the zebras and the cows and horses as part of our democracy?”

One student, processing the task before her, said to one of the plants, “I don’t know how to relate to you in this subjective way. I am afraid that if I do I might discover a level of pain that I don’t know whether I can bear.” And I, reading the article, feel that perhaps she has been wiser than she thinks. Because, unwittingly, gathering a lot of plants and arranging them and kneeling before them to confess one’s sins, says a lot of things, and all of them are heartbreaking.

The first thing it says is something that a lot of Christians have noticed for a long time. It says that the created order entirely obeys God—all of it. All of if that is, except for the human part. I have a nice little essay tucked somewhere in my book piles by Maria Montessori in which she describes, in beautifully clear language for the youngest child, how all of creation obeys. The wind obeys, the molecules obey, the animals obey. God set forth gracious laws to govern the order of every speck of his creation, everything we can see and can’t see, and everything obeys. But man does not obey. And so, because we don’t obey, won’t obey, we break the beautiful rhythms of creation’s obedience. When you look to the heavens to see their declaration of glory, in the same moment you can look at yourself and see your own ruining disobedience. This is the place, because of global climate change, that so many young people find themselves. Looking at a world they know should be good, they see it is not, and they come undone.

The second thing it says is that, as in every age, the trouble of that disobedient self is just as intolerable as it has always been, from the garden, as it were. It is a lot nicer to arrange all the plants and apologize to them, to externalize one’s guilt, than to look at God and say, “I have sinned…I have fallen short of your glory.” Big systemic, global, political answers to a disordered creation are lots more interesting and fun that telling God that you personally are wrong and there’s nothing you can do to make it better.

The third thing it says is that incoherence is preferable to true repentance. If democracy now demands that seeds and zebras be brought in to the political calculations of the age, not to be given a vote, of course, but to be used as weapons just as everything else is, then we are at peak absurdity. The subjectivity of vegetable life is invited intersect with my subjective idolatry in a burgeoning garden of madness.

Trouble is, the deep coherence at the root of every plant—that God is sovereign and we are isolators—will eventually grow into that eschatological tree we’re all so afraid of, Judgement. But the Judge will not be confused, and we will finally have to say we were wrong. Until then, go to the one who was lifted up to die on on that tree, and ask him to save you.

In the News

Culture Watch

Just Plain Spiritual

Previous Post

October 1, 2019

Stop Oppressing Me

Next Post

October 3, 2019 Three Things on Thursday

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does 1 Peter say believers are being built into?

Select your answer to see how you score.

A holy nation God's temple Living stones A spiritual house

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »