God’s creation and our waste: a Lenten reflection

As we move closer to Holy Week, as we journey once again through Christ’s passion, crucifixion, death, and resurrection, can we consider this suggestion as our simple daily offering back to God, as our token of gratitude and service for his greatest gift of love?

As responsible, grateful stewards, from this Lent forward, can we give back daily to God honor and respect for all that he created?

Can we offer as our prayer and offering to God the simple daily act of responsibly managing, properly segregating and disposing of our plastic and other wastes? Can we also do more by mindfully, responsibly doing our best to reduce waste as well?

Why?

To honor, thank God, and protect, preserve all that he created that he saw was good. To walk our talk that we love God and our neighbors as ourselves. To not waste God’s creation with our waste.

Genesis 1:1-2:3 reminds us that “at the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” as follows:

“Day 1 - God created light and separated the light from the darkness, calling light "day" and darkness "night." Day 2 - God created an expanse to separate the waters and called it "sky." Day 3 - God created the dry ground called “land” and gathered the waters called “seas.” On day three, God also created vegetation (plants and trees). Day 4 - God created the sun, moon, and the stars to give light to the earth, to govern and separate the day and the night and also to serve as signs to mark seasons, days, and years. Day 5 - God created every living creature of the seas and every winged bird, blessing them to multiply, to fill the waters and the sky with life.

Day 6 - God created the animals to fill the earth. God also created man and woman (Adam and Eve) in his own image. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth. Look, I have given you every seed-bearing plant on the surface of the entire earth and every tree whose fruit contains seed. This will be food for you, for all the wildlife of the earth, for every bird of the sky, and for every creature that crawls on the earth—everything having the breath of life in it—I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed.

On Day 7, God finished his work of creation and so he rested on the seventh day, blessing it and making it holy.”

Reflecting on Genesis, are we left with awe and gratitude for God, his love and his creation- the wonderful world he created for us?

Next, can we focus our reflection on today’s world?

Is the wonderful world created by God still around? Is God’s world still beautiful and would God be pleased to see our present world and will he still say it is good?

Or has God’s world gone so abused and filthy – the mountains bare, his forests and wildlife endangered, his land and waters filled with so much waste- dirty, smelly, dangerous, unhealthy waste?

How much of that waste is ours? How much of plastics and other wastes that caused floods and killed people or threatened the sea creatures are from our own hands?

Can we vow to God, from this Lent onward, that we will reduce, sort, and properly manage our waste to restore his beautiful planet for all his people?