Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill, NC

This issue of Cross Roads explores the formation of each of us as Christians, that is, how we begin learning about God when we are children, then grow in our spirituality as we grow physically, ultimately discerning God's will in our lives and attempting to carry out that will. This leads to the question of how we become formed as stewards of our environment - the air, water, land, climate, plants, and animals that make up God's creation.

While the emphasis tends toward adults teaching children, the Environmental Stewardship Committee invites you to consider the formation of environmental stewards as a two-way process, that is, with adults teaching children, and also with children teaching adults. Woven throughout this two-way process is an underlying theme: the importance of actually experiencing the natural world, God's creation. In simple words, the importance of getting outside!

It is estimated that we Americans spend 90% of our time indoors. This experience protects us from the weather and provides space and opportunity for productive working and living. While windows to the outside world provide opportunity for observing the natural world, the formation of environmental stewards cries out for the "experiencing" of that natural world. Being outside helps us to connect with nature, both mentally and physically.

Go into this wondrous creation with your child, your grandchild, or any child. See God's creation through their eyes. Take advantage of this opportunity to learn and to teach about the environment and the care, or stewardship, of that environment. And don't feel that you need a degree in ecology or botany or natural history to do this! It is more important to learn together, to share the joy and excitement of discovering and experiencing nature.

John 3:16 tells us that God "so loved the world" - meaning all the world; humans, yes, but also plants and animals that are part of that creation. As an old Chinese proverb tells us:
" ... in the end, we will protect only what we love, and we will love only what we know, and we will know only what we are taught." So knowledge and understanding of God's creation are basic to the formation of environmental stewards.

Head outside with a child and a kite, or explore the world of birds with a backyard feeding station, or lie on your back together and see "life" in cloud formations, and teach these children about their climate and the air they breathe: the importance of having clean air and of our daily activities that can cause pollution in that air. Go to a riverbank or beside a stream or a waterfall and teach them about the water they drink: where it comes from, the finiteness of that water and thus, the importance of conservation, and the actions that protect or pollute that water. Walk through a forest or a cornfield or a garden, and teach them about the land that sustains our physical existence. Teach them about the plants and animals with which we share this creation, and about our uniquely human ability to alter the air, water, land, climate, plants, and animals in either positive or negative ways. Develop together an ever-evolving understanding that we are all part of God's creation. When our actions and decisions pollute the environment, we are polluting what God created - the very air, water, and land that we have been charged to protect.

Ask a child where food comes from. If the answer is, "the grocery store," visit a farm or a local farmer's market, plant a garden, or perhaps just one flower or one vegetable and watch it grow, pick strawberries in the spring, watch a cow being milked.

Ask a child where the trash goes. If the answer is "away," teach them that there really is no "away." Visit a landfill, model behavior for them that demonstrates the three "Rs" of waste reduction: reduce, reuse, and recycle.

But wait! What about that "two-way" process mentioned at the beginning of this article? The answer lies in the eyes of that child. As you seek to be a teacher about God's creation, so also seek to see that creation through the eyes of your child, or the children you seek to teach. Share their joy and awe and surprise as they watch minnows in the stream, or identify a bird by its song, or delight in a rainbow, or taste those blueberries, just picked and warm from the sun.

Yes, we know from Genesis that God declared all in his creation to be "good." Seeing that creation through the eyes of children renews in our all-too-busy adult lives, the wonder that is Earth, our planet home.

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