2026-09-06 Iain Lothian Creationtide 1 The Wow of Wild Things

Creationtide 1 (6/09/26): The Wow of Wild Things - Revd Iain Lothian


I want to start by showing a short trailer of a film, which I think illustrates 2 contrasting ways of looking at creation and the Natural world.


Show video clip of Indigenous people from the Rainforest called Flowers of the Earth


Just take away with us that final phrase that, ‘We need to reforest the mind, by reforesting the mind we will then reforest many territories in our world.’ So the invitation to you all is to put some intention, this creationtide season, to reforest the mind.


A reforesting of the mind involves spending time in nature and changing of our worldview from being separate to the natural world to one of being a part of it.. Much of Western Christianity has and is built on an anthropocentric worldview which has, in part, enabled the despoiling of our natural world leading to the present climate crises.. John McArthur, a pastor of a mega church in America, recently said: God intended us to use this planet, to fill this planet for the benefit of man. Never was it intended to be a permanent planet. It is a disposable planet. Christians ought to know that.


This may be extreme but it is part of a continuum that believes we are separate from creation and that creation is primarily a resource to be used. At best ecological issues may be a kind of added extra to our faith. Even having the season of creationtide feeds into this idea. But I guess we have to start somewhere.


Whereas a reforesting the mind requires something far more radical and foundational, with an understanding that we are an integral part of creation and that creation is an integral part of us. This is why Creation Stories are so important in understanding our place in the world and modern science is has given us and is constantly giving us this understanding that we are part of creation - for instance we are told that.


In Genesis 2 it says: The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living being. We are wonderfully made of mud and spirit: We are both earthy, connected to the world we inhabit, yet elevated and sacred - it is this alchemy of mud and spirit that makes us alive and fully human. The mud life grounds us, links us to our fellow creatures, is disciplined enough to achieve outcomes, seeks safety and routine whereas the life of the spirit is one of dreams, flying high, taking risks, stepping out in trust, surrendering to divine invitation. It is the bringing together, for the artist technique and improvisation, for the writer, perspiration and inspiration. Mud says categorically we are part of creation and is the primary material of human experience but we need the Holy breath to sweep through us to become fully alive.


In a time of profound ecological and social upheaval, we are invited to remember something ancient: we are not separate from the living world. The Earth is not a backdrop to our lives, but the ground from which we arise—and a source of wisdom for navigating profound change.


The Bible, particularly in the Psalms and Wisdom literature of the O.T. and Christian Mystics, through the ages teach us that creation is sacred and the primary locus of divine-human communion, which discharges truth, wisdom and beauty requiring a surrender of a person to the glory of existence of the Divine.


They describe a God who is deeply embedded in creation or a creation deeply embedded in God; whichever way around you say it, there is a deep incarnation where God is present in creation but not confined within creation, thereby acknowledging the transcendence, as well as immanence of God. It is an understanding that everything is in God and God is in everything; creation is therefore a sacred dwelling place of God, and it reconnects us, not only with one another and all life on earth, but also to the Divine.


If we begin to reforest our minds and develop an understanding of the sacred nature of creation, we see it as a gift not as a possession: This should lead us on a path of awe and wonder, leading to praise and thanksgiving, so evident in the Psalm we sang this morning.


Rabbi Abraham Hershel said: Awe, wonder and radical amazement has an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine. ... to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple: to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend about the mystery of God through analysis, study of scripture, we become aware of in awe and wonder.


Awe, wonder and radical amazement should be something we aspire to: to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted and never to treat life casually. Everything is potentially phenomenal; everything is potentially incredible.


Yet it is so easy to be tired and miss the incredible, the phenomenal, the wonderful. We need to learn anew to be surprised, to see the world again through the eyes of a child. To have our hearts and minds reforested.


If God is embedded in creation, or creation embedded in God it should come as no surprise that for many, if not all of us, have a sense of the divine in nature because it discharges God’s glory, grandeur, wisdom and beauty, if we are awake and present enough to sense it. Its beauty, often terrifying, can heal and transform us, giving us a sense of belonging, taking us away from our small islands of life and leading us outwards to ever expanding horizons, showing us that we are part of a bigger story.


The beautiful poem by Wendell Berry describes the healing capacity of nature discharging sights, sounds and a beauty, which provides stillness, peace, rest, belonging and freedom. (Otto Rank said:When religion lost the cosmos, society became neurotic and we needed to invent psychology to deal with the neurosis.) A sense of being part of the web of life is essential to our well being.


But creation can be terrifying: Beauty and terror are handmaidens. Creation reflects the world’s and God’s pain and suffering - there are some dark and cruel aspects to creation but the Bible teaches us that God is in both the light and the dark.


If we see God embedded in creation and creation embedded in God, then creation is sacred and to despoil it becomes a sacrareligious act - Jurgen Moltman, the German Theologian said that when we destroy God’s creation we crucify Christ and conversely when we help nature come alive, planting seeds, leaving ground fallow to recover, resurrection is happening.


So today’s service is an invitation to focus intentionally over the month of September to reforest the mind and cultivate a sense of, what I call the wowness of creation, so I would like to create a St. James collective poem of our wowness of creation, our collective sense of awe, wonder and radical amazement. I will start it off by giving a few wows: Lest we forget we live in a world where:


Octopuses dream

Sea otters have a favourite rock they keep for life

Cows have best friends

Bees have different dance dialects depending on region,

Cats purr at a frequency that can promote bone healing

Dolphins give each other names and respond to it

Whales sing songs that can be heard for miles

Horses can read human emotions

Rain has a smell before it arrives

Waterfalls exist beneath the oceans

Atoms making up the stars are the same atoms in us