October is a kind of liminal or transitional time, standing as it does on the threshold between summer and winter. Here in Colorado, we see leaves of quaking aspen turn gold on the sides of the Rocky Mountains. Above those trees is the Continental Divide, an imaginary line atop the Rockies that delineates where streams flow (those on the east toward the Atlantic, those on the west toward the Pacific).
As people of God, we are called to care for natural wonders. Today we stand at the summit of a Great Divide, a liminal time. Turning in one direction, we see and hear government leaders putting price tags on our environment. In the other direction, we hear and see the church reminding us of our biblical responsibility to care for creation.
The ELCA’s social statement “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice,” adopted in 1993, says: “We know care for the earth to be a profoundly spiritual matter. Despite human actions that result in harm to our planet and our suffering neighbors overseas, God is in, with and under the earth, redeeming it and the rest of creation.”
This message is excerpted from “Liminal Time” by Terry L. Bowes in the October 2017 Gather magazine.
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This was very appropriate for today since we were traveling across Colorado via Amtrak and viewing the majesty of God’s creation!