Creation as God’s Handiwork

June 18, 2010

Handiwork isn’t a word we use much anymore.  The work of someone’s hands; that is, something done very personally.  All this talk about “green” things and “creation care” and “sustainability” gives some yet another opportunity to choose sides: are you going to care about God’s creation, or do you believe that God gave us dominion over the earth and we can do with it whatever we want.  Of course, most of us fall somewhere in the middle of that and think that neither are mutually exclusive.  We do have the opportunity–and thus responsibility–to care for what God has provided, but I think too often our focus is misplaced.

How do we live in creation?  Do we relate to it as a place full of “things” that we can use for whatever need we want to fulfill and whatever goal we wish to accomplish?  Or do we see creation first of all as a sacramental reality, a sacred space where God reveals to us the immense beauty Himself–the Divine?  As long as we only use creation, we cannot recognise its sacredness because we are approaching it as if we are its owners.  But when we relate to all that surrounds us as God’s “handiwork,” created by the same God who created us and as the place where God appears to us and calls us to worship and adoration, then we are able to recognise the sacred quality of all God’s handiwork–the “personal toil” of His very hands.  Then, “creation care” is less about recycling and frustration about low-pressure showerheads and more about loving our neighbors in time as well as space, and honoring the Creator behind creation by protecting His handiwork for generations to come.