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Come join us as we “travel” to the Galapagos Islands this summer at Eureka Christian Church!
Our summer worship series will focus on the book The Galapagos Islands: A Spiritual Journey by Brian McLaren. This is “one part travel guide, one part spiritual memoir, and one part ethical & theological reflection” (Preface, p. ix). Each week we will explore a different spiritual theme as we also learn more about the Galapagos Islands. Many thanks to Gary and Barb Baner, Karen Fyke, Abby and Carolyn Reel, and Tracy Simmons for providing visuals for this series.
This Sunday, June 4 will be an introduction. Here is a preview.
McLaren writes:
“Most theology in recent centuries…has been the work of avid indoorsmen, scholars who typically work in square boxes called offices or classrooms or sanctuaries, surrounded by square books and, more recently, square screens, under square roofs in square buildings surrounded by other square buildings, laid out in square city blocks that stretch as far as the eye can see…There is nothing inherently wrong about [this] civilized, indoor theology.
Except this: theology that arises in human-made, human-controlled architecture…will differ markedly from theology that arises in conversation with the wild world that flourishes beyond our walls and outside our windows and cities…a wild theology that arises under the stars and planets, along a thundering river or meandering stream, admiring a flock of pelicans or weaver finches, watching a lion stalk a wildebeest, gazing at a spider spinning her web, observing a single tree bud form, swell, burst, and bloom” (The Galapagos Islands, p. xiii-xv).
As I see it, this indoor theology has also contributed to some of the environmental issues the global community faces today. We are increasingly detached from the wild world. We have spent so much energy controlling it and consuming it that we haven’t left ourselves any breathing space, any soul space to contemplate it or celebrate it. I have spent most of my life in cities, for example, going from air-conditioned homes to air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned stores and places of work. And while I have long-enjoyed walking, before moving here, it was mostly in neighborhoods. On sidewalks, dodging cars.
This detachment has consequences.
Because what we don’t know, we don’t appreciate.
What we don’t appreciate, we don’t value.
And what we don’t value, we don’t take care of.
For many of us, that “wild world that flourishes beyond our walls,” as McLaren puts it, is “other.” It is separate, completely foreign.
But here’s the thing.
It isn’t other, separate, or foreign. For we are part of it. We are inseparable from it, in fact.
Now I know that we have done a mighty masterful job at deceiving ourselves here, but the truth remains: what happens out in that wild world affects us. What happens out in that wild world is us, becomes us.
McLaren is right: We need a wild theology. A theology that marvels at the stars and the planets, that meanders alongside the streams, that admires pelicans, spiders spinning webs, and the blossoms of spring. A theology that contemplates and celebrates.
“We imagine,” McLaren writes, “a wild theology that doesn’t limit itself to Plato and Aquinas but also consults the wisdom of rainbow trout and sea turtles, seasons and tides. We imagine a wild theology whose horizons are measured not by thousands of years and miles but by billions of light years. We imagine a wild theology that is articulated in books, yes, but also in stories and songs, in foods and feasts, in dances and lamentations and pilgrimages that resonate with the turning seasons and rhythmic tides of the natural world” (The Galapagos Islands, p. xv).
Sign me up! I want to find God “where the wild things are.” What to come along?
I’ll see you Sunday.
Jennie
Worship at 8:15 and 10:30 a.m.
On-site at 302 South Main Street Eureka, Illinois
Online at eurekachristian.org/worship-online or facebook.com/eurekacc/live
