Spiritual
love
Agape
The basic spiritual
principle of 'loving your enemies' and giving without selfish
motives is found in all major religions. Despite the
differences, all religions share some very important, fundamental
principles and goals, the highest of which is the realisation of
spiritual love. For our single word love' the ancient Greeks
used several words in an effort to clarify love's various shades of
meaning. The distinguished, for example, between the romantic
love shared between sexual partners, and the 'brotherly love' that
exists among friends. The highest form of love to the Greeks is
termed 'agape'. Agape is love not directed towards a single
person or a small group of friends, but toward all humanity even
all creation. As such is it the mainstay of the eight major
world religions.
Many people are
hungering for a greater connection with nature, and although agape
can be traced through all religions it is commonly developed at the
human level as a set of qualities including good will, kindness,
forgiveness and compassion towards others. It is only
in the Native American tradition that agape is articulated as an
over-arching belief system and spiritual heritage that has a
deep connection with nature and gratitude toward it. From
feast days that celebrate harvest to ceremonies that welcome the
winter solstice, the earth is honored in many ways. These
deeply nature-based belief systems see the earth as the sacred
mother who nurtures all her parts- plants, rocks, trees, animals,
streams, humans- everything. We are related to everything on earth
because we are an inextricable part of everything; the water, the
air, and the minerals of the earth.
Most people, no
matter what attitude they take to religion, bring these
spiritual perspectives of nature into our daily lives in many ways.
Walking on the earth and feeling more peaceful, watching the birds
in their cycles of life, or enjoying the changing beauty of the
trees are ways we connect with nature. We may make our natural
connections by appreciating a tree that we particularly enjoy,
taking a special walk where we can experience the rhythm of nature,
or sitting quietly on a solid rock bench. All these actions are
sacred when we have appreciation for them. Our grateful attitude is
a true gift to both ourselves and the natural world of which we are
a part.
Icons of
agape
For some, ostensible
ruins and the remains of formerly widespread ecosystems, are sites
for spiritual, mystical, or religious encounters. They are
places to experience mystery, moral regeneration, spiritual
revival, meaning, oneness, unity, wonder, awe, inspiration, or a
sense of harmony with the rest of creation–all essentially
religious experiences.
These landmarks are
also said to be places where one can come to an understanding of
and engage in the celebration of the creation–an essentially
religious activity. Hence, for people who think like this,
designated nature conservation areas can and do serve as a sort of
(or in lieu of) a church, mosque, tabernacle, synagogue, or
cathedral. We should, then, no more destroy wilderness areas than
we should raze Mecca or turn the Sistine Chapel into a giant grain
silo. For some, wild places represent and reflect the various
spiritual and religious values that they hold dear.
To go one step
further, some even claim that since designated areas for nature
conservation are the closest thing we have on earth to the original
work of God, to destroy them would be tantamount to the destruction
of God's handiwork, forever altering God's original
intent.
John Muir believed
that the closer one was to nature, the closer one was to God. To
Muir, "wilderness" was the highest manifestation of nature and so
was a "window opening into heaven, a mirror reflecting the
Creator," and all parts of it were seen as "sparks of the Divine
Soul." Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley
was, for Muir, a place epitomizing wilderness, a shrine to a higher
existence, the destruction of which was tantamount to sacrilege.
For this reason, Muir vehemently defended Hetch Hetchy and said of
its would-be desecraters:
These temple
destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a
perfect contempt for Nature, and, instead of lifting their eyes to
the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty
Dollar.
Dam Hetch Hetchy!
As well dam for water-tanks the people's cathedrals and churches,
for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart or
man.
Transcendentalists,
such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry Thoreau, went so far as to
claim that one could only genuine understand moral and aesthetic
truths in what they took to be a wilderness setting. For these
thinkers, civilization only fragments and taints one's genuine
moral and aesthetic understanding.
http://www.ahealingplace.org/earthsteward/naturesacred.html
