Revering Nature vs. Worshiping Nature
The Celts, along with many Nature-oriented indigenous cultures such as Native Americans, are often accused by evangelical Christians of “worshiping” Nature. Sadly, this has kept many from experiencing the rich offerings of the Celtic Christian tradition. The accusation of worshiping Nature is based on a misplaced understanding of the relationship and attitude toward Nature that the Celtic perspective offers.
To assist our understanding, let us consider the idea of “revering” Nature instead of worshiping Nature. The Celts, as well as Native Americans and many other Nature based spiritual perspectives, understand humans as well as each manifestation of any-thing in the natural world as expressions of God’s self into material form. That doesn’t mean that each thing or person is God.
To assist our understanding, let us consider the idea of “revering” Nature instead of worshiping Nature. The Celts, as well as Native Americans and many other Nature based spiritual perspectives, understand humans as well as each manifestation of any-thing in the natural world as expressions of God’s self into material form. That doesn’t mean that each thing or person is God.
It means that each thing is a mirroring of God and is pulsing with the life of the Creator. All things, humans included, share the essence of Life itself, and God is life. Therefore, God is in and through all. The thing or creature or person is not God in and of itself, but it is not just an inanimate bit of matter to be ignored either. Life in any form is to be profoundly respected as a sibling to our own sense of our own lives. Without the Creator’s endowing of each thing with life, then it, and all, would cease to exist immediately.
To revere Nature then is to be humble and care-filled in our relating to it. It is to be an awe of the Life that courses through everything. It is to assume that “I” am not superior to “it” and therefore I come to “it” with curiosity, humility, openness, gratitude, and even love. As I revere each manifestation of Life, I encounter the Creator who contains and superintends every-thing.
I am not worshiping the thing, but instead I am joining the thing in essential relationship to the Divine Light that shines through it all. Miraculously, each thing can show me and teach me and invite me into a deeper encounter with God.
From this perspective, the casual, authoritarian, domineering, and consuming attitude that the Christian church and all of Western society has generally taken toward Creation is not only horribly destructive but it is to miss the very being of God. Paradoxically, by being so scared of Nature “worship”, we have been lead to miss the very God who is the subject of worship.
The Celtic invitation is back to curiosity, awe, gratitude, and humble relationship with all things. And within that mutual recognition and relatedness, we are to care for Nature as the brother and sister that it is to us all.