The Wounding of Creation

This morning someone in our meeting requested prayer for the oil spill and during the time of prayer the image of the oil spill came back to me in a powerful way. I envisioned the hole where the spill gushes out as a seeping wound. Creation is deeply wounded, and that wound continues to gush uncontrollably. We do not know what to do to make it stop. We technologically advances, brilliant, wealthy, powerful, people are utterly helpless to keep her from bleeding to death. We cannot make it stop. This excessive oozing of the “blood” flowing from creation is clear and obscene symbol for the wounding that creation has bore for quite some time now. For this short time, everyone is pained by these images. Many, when (and if) this is over, will try and wipe the slate clean and go on with their day-to-day lives, as though nothing ever happened. This is like the other tragedies that have happened this year, they all force us, for however short a time they last, to face the reality, that the Earth and its people are not to be taken for granted any longer. Right now, the images are stark and recurring. This obscenity of this situation, is the same as the woman who has bled for 12 years wandering out into the public to track down a healer-physican (Luke 8:42), it is intrusive as the lame man begging for help outside a place of worship day in and day out (Acts 3). It  is out in the open, unavoidable, unstoppable and absolutely intrusive. It tells us something about our society, and our own lives.

Creation is wounded, and there is nothing we can do to heal these scars. God help us. God forgive us.