[Magdalen] A Reflection

[Marion Thompson]

You  said a mouthful, Bob.

Marion, a pilgrim
On 2/20/2015 9:10 PM, Robert Rea wrote:
> I am reading Diane Ackerman, _The Human Age._ She looks at
> our effect on the environment. She tells about projects now
> being done that deal with some of these effects and give my
> heart and mind hope. Her language is almost utopian; she
> speaks of a world redeemed.
>
> At Morning Prayer today some verses from Deuteronomy
> 7:12-16 struck me. It speaks of the covenant between God
> and God's people:
> "If you heed these ordinances, by diligently observing
> them, the LORD your God will maintain with you the covenant
> loyalty that he swore to your ancestors; he will love you,
> bless you, and multiply you; he will bless the fruit of your
> womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine
> and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the issue of
> your flock, in the land that he swore to your ancestors to
> give you. You shall be the most blessed of peoples, with
> neither sterility nor barrenness among you or your
> livestock. The LORD will turn away from you every illness;
> all the dread diseases of Egypt that you experienced, he
> will not inflict on you,"
> This also sounds utopian.
>
> God is the creator of all this. What if the guidelines of
> the covenant serve to guide us on how best to live in the
> created world? If some of what Ackerman tells us about were
> to spread and to be fulfilled, we would be living more in
> tune with the creation. then we might flourish, the fruit
> of our soil might flourish, our cattle and us be well, and
> all our illnesses be healed.
>
> All we need do is fulfill the covenant today.
>
> And maybe what we hear about in the Scriptures as
> punishment for sin is just the necessary result of not
> living according to the creation. That's far too sweeping.
> It can't include some of the things the Scriptures say are
> consequences of sin. It can, however, include a lot of
> them. Acts do have consequences; we are suffering them
> nowadays.
>