Ever since the advent of "earth-based spiritualities" in our time,
the call to realize the Divine Immanence, to see God in the forms
of the natural world and the particular events of our lives, has
become paramount. And yet, without a corresponding sense of the
Divine Transcendence, we find ourselves drawn towards a kind of
glamourized materialism, worshipping visible realities at the
expense of the Invisible, taking as our deity a physical planet
with a beginning and an end in time, instead of the living and
eternal God, Who is before all beginnings and beyond all ends. This
bias toward the Immanent as against the Transcendent (leading to
the loss of both of them) has cast a shadow on the traditional
religions, especially the Abrahamic ones: Judaism, Christianity and
Islam. It has hidden from us the dimensions of those religions
wherein it is explicitly stated that "the heavens declare the Glory
of God and the earth shows forth His handiwork." In this book, the
author attempts to right this balance by showing the place of the
contemplation of the natural world, and a respect for the Earth, in
all the traditional religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism,
Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Native American
spiritualities. Even the Lakota understand that this "Mother Earth"
is not the absolute Reality, that behind her stands "Grandmother
Earth," and behind her, Wakan Tanka, the Great Mystery itself. To
mistake the Earth for God is to place a burden upon her that she is
unable to bear, to deplete her resources and ultimately jeopardize
her survival. But if we can regain the ability to contemplate God
as He is in Himself, then this living Earth, and the material
universe around us, will take their proper place in this
contemplative act. They will be revealed as God's icon, the
ensemble of His placeless and eternal signs manifesting in space
and time, appearing through the only medium capable of bringing God
and His universe together into perfect union: the human form.
Charles Upton is a serious thinker from whom I have learned much.
His writing merits close attention. Huston Smith, author of The
World's Religions, etc.
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