Sustainability and Salvation

We can only pursue sustainability if we feel connected to something larger than ourselves.  

Contemporary values are completely disordered - they treat the Earth as something disposable, and the individual as the ultimate end, whose desires are to be fulfilled regardless of the cost.  In reality we are mortal beings small parts of a much larger system of life.  Our lives are only meaningful when they are in order with the larger system.  The Earth is the source of all life, and we owe all of our whole lives, every bit of joy and suffering we can squeeze out of our finite span, to the benevolence and generosity of creation.  Our ultimate goal in life must be oriented towards the preservation of all the diversity of life on Earth.  This is a spiritual but also a practical and moral task to which we all owe our allegiance.
How is it possible for the individual to be saved?  Only by being connection to something larger than himself.  If the individual views his own wants and needs as the ultimate purpose of the world, he will become frustrated with the narrow confines of his view of the world.  The world will close in around him, seeming increasingly frustrating, because wants and needs are ephemeral and undependable and arbitrary.  Although salvation can come from a relationship with God, the ordering of this relationship within the natural world will tend naturally towards stewardship of gifts, including stewardship of the gift of creation.  If we cherish every gift we have been given, including gifts of beauty and fertility, we must become dedicated to sustainability as a core moral principle of everyday life.


So much of what I see around me is not so much evil as thoughtlessness, habit, convenience, and disordered values.  To satisfy narrow goals and desires through consumption is inherently in contradiction with pursuing the greater goal of sustainability of this planet. To pursue sustainability, perhaps first we need to be saved.

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