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Day 12

Psalm 8:4-9

When I see the heavens, the work of your hands,

the moon and the stars which you arranged,

what is man that you should keep him in mind,

mortal man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him little less than a god;

with glory and honor you crowned him,

gave him power over the works of your hands,

put all things under his feet.

All of them, sheep and cattle,

yes, even the savage beasts,

⁹birds of the air, and fish

that make their way through the waters.

Everything Rushes , Rushes (Jessica Powers)

The brisk blue morning whisked in with a thought:

everything in creation rushes, rushes

toward God—tall trees, small bushes,

quick birds and fish, the beetles round as naught,

eels in the water, deer on forest floor,

what sits in trees, what burrows underground,

what wriggles to declare life must abound,

and we, the spearhead that run on before,

and lesser things to which life cannot come:

our work, our words that move toward the Unmoved,

whatever can be touched, used, handled, loved—

all, all are rushing on ad terminum.

So I, with eager voice and news-flushed face,

cry to those caught in comas, stupors, sleeping:

come, everything is running

flying,

leaping,

hurtling through time!

And we are in this race.

Musical Selection

O strength and stay upholding all creation,
who ever dost thyself unmoved abide,
yet day by day the light in due gradation
from hour to hour through all its changes guide;

Grant to life's day a calm unclouded ending,
an eve untouched by shadows of decay,
the brightness of a holy death-bed blending
with dawning glories of the eternal day.

Hear us, O Father, gracious and forgiving,
through Jesus Christ thy co-eternal Word,
who with the Holy Ghost by all things living
now and to endless ages art adored.

Meditation

Not every increase in power represents progress for humanity. We need only think of the “admirable” technologies that were employed to decimate populations, drop atomic bombs and annihilate ethnic groups. There were historical moments where our admiration at progress blinded us to the horror of its consequences. But that risk is always present, because “our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience... We stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. We have certain superficial mechanisms, but we cannot claim to have a sound ethics, a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint”.It is not strange that so great a power in such hands is capable of destroying life, while the mentality proper to the technocratic paradigm blinds us and does not permit us to see this extremely grave problem of present-day humanity.

Contrary to this technocratic paradigm, we say that the world that surrounds us is not an object of exploitation, unbridled use and unlimited ambition. Nor can we claim that nature is a mere “setting” in which we develop our lives and our projects. For “we are part of nature, included in it and thus in constant interaction with it”,and thus “we [do] not look at the world from without but from within”. (LD 24-25)

Prayer

Everlasting God
whose Spirit broods everlastingly over the lands and the waters,
and endows them with form and colour:
give us, we pray, the mind and heart
to rejoice in the majesty of creation.
Teach us to be responsible stewards of this world
and to seek the common good,
that through your blessing all may flourish,
and creation sing your praise
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Rt Revd Robert Atwell
Bishop of Exeter

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