Greta Thunberg has mobilized youth around the globe to protect Planet Earth. Marches mobilizing thousands of participants demonstrate the earnestness of these young people to ensure their future and that of generations to come. For them and all of us it is a matter of the survival of humans, animals, plants, every creature. Perhaps for some of these young people the marches go beyond the urgent need for physical survival. Planet Earth also holds our spiritual survival.

Richard Rohr in his book The Universal Christ reminds us that creation was the first Bible. It existed 13.7 billion years before the second Bible was written. Is pollution ripping out pages from this spiritual book so filled with God? Already there are hundreds of species we will never see again. That’s hundreds of species about which we could have been filled with awe and praise God for God’s creativity. That’s hundreds of species who in themselves cannot praise God by their very existence.

Rohr writes: “God love things by becoming them. God love things by uniting with them, not by excluding them.” Do we love as God loves? Can we understand the unity and interdependence among all creatures?

Take time today to read Creation’s Bible.