The Creator - God in the Christian Bible - has made the universe, the entities of space, and, from the perspective of humanity - the Earth. All of the Earth is ordered into its nature. And God put humanity into the new creation, to abide. The nature of abiding is to integrate into the environment, to be peaceful, thoughtful caregivers of all that is created. Humans are created, honored by the Creator - the image of God. The expression of the image is Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ and Messiah. Fully human, fully divine.
Within this Christ we know our own creation, and our own divinity, realized at the resurrection.
The touch of the Creator is sacred, and the creation is sacred, shaped by God's hands. The myth of the Garden and its Humans carries this subtext. God made all that is, and yet made Humans with the Creator's own hands, out of the stuff of Creation, the earth's soil. The soil is what nourishes all beings; it is sacred matter. The soil itself is creator-like, imbued with the vitality of God, participating in the ever-continuous act of Creation. And Humans are made of this substance, becoming the Image.
If all of Creation, from the stars to the smallest plant, is Sacred, then is it evil to destroy and disturb the holiness endued by the hand of the Creator. And so Humans have done. The picking and eating of the fruit of the Garden is about a destruction, a disturbance. The balance of the Garden is broken, as Humans have decided to take lordship over what belongs to the Creator. Before, there was nothing to own, and no one to own, as Humans were creatures made by God for a higher purpose than mere destruction. But what is the purpose of Humans? "God has shown you, Humans, what is Good; and what does God require of you, but to do justice, and to cherish mercy, and to walk graciously with your Creator." (MICAH 6:8)
Humans are to walk with God in the light of God's love, and to dispense that love and mercy, or care, to all that has been created, Humans and the ambient creation.
Those who devote themselves to God, or those who devote themselves to the creation, are frequently told, often in unkind voices, that to desire a world where nature is honored as sacred is unrealistic. People need jobs, the world needs fuel and food and recreation. Yet we see recreation as amusement and diversion, a distraction from our usual cares. But look at the word. RE-creation. Making a new creation, or restoring creation to God's expectations. And this people do not do. Instead, we take the time when we do not need to work as a means to waste resources, and often exhaust our bodies. At work, or in mindless daily activity, people waste resources and serve corporations instead of God. A basic yearning for what is beautiful, true, kind and generous is killed by slavishly obeying the world of money, and not the God-Creator.
We cannot walk the way of Creation while walking the path of hell. We cannot love if we are commanded by the acquisition of wealth to ignore and harm God's handwork. We turn our backs on love , justice and beauty and pace arrogantly toward a false vision of manufactured goods ripped from the earth itself.
