We have received two books of divine revelation, the book of Scripture and the book of nature. Creation is a sacred text through which the presence of God is revealed. Mercy by the Sea and Mercy Farm are places of exquisite beauty where creation and the Divine are met. As I gaze upon the water or walk the land, it is clear in me that our relationship with the Divine and creation is integral to the flourishing of all beings.
Since 2005, the Sisters of Mercy have had a commitment “to reverence Earth and work more effectively toward the sustainability of life.” There are many ways this commitment has been integrated into Mercy ministries. The Northeast Community initiated the work of Mercy Ecology in 2006. An eco-spirituality retreat house and farm in Benson, Vermont, and New Dawn Center for education in Cumberland, Rhode Island were established. (New Dawn has since had to close.) Mercy by the Sea was also part of this effort before closing for renovation. The dream was to help bring about a healing of Earth and provide a haven of peace where people could reconnect with the natural world through educational and experiential opportunities.
As of September 2018, I am thrilled to step into a collaboration between Mercy Ecology and Mercy by the Sea developing and offering eco-spirituality programs. My focus is to deepen the efforts of making the two books of divine revelation evident, vibrant and accessible. Through integrating the spirituality of ecology into programs, practices and decision-making, I hope that all who visit will experience the gifts of creation and come to know what Teilhard de Chardin called the “breathing together of all things.”
“The second half of my life will be ice breaking up on the river, rain soaking the fields, a hand held out, a fire, and smoke going upward, always up.”
I begin this reflection on second half of life spirituality with an excerpt from Joyce Sutpen’s poem “Crossroads.” With so many poems on the topic from which to choose, I picked Sutpen’s for its evocative imagery and its outright acknowledgement that we can choose to thrive in the second half of our lives. In just a few lines, the poet describes some of the beautiful gifts we can anticipate.
Poet, peacemaker, minister and Celtic spirituality scholar, John Philip Newell, gave a retreat entitled "The Song of the Sacred Earth" at Mercy by the Sea in mid-July. Sister Mary Daly offered this spiritual practice as part of the three-day retreat.
“I was searching without while you were within ... more inward than my inmost self and superior to my highest being.” St. Augustine, The Confessions
“Let the final word be, ‘God is in all things’.”
Every artist knows that her work of art bears some resemblance, some likeness to herself. And then, the viewer contemplating the art work also is, in some sense, contemplating the artist. Sometimes you resonate, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you find a piece of yourself being opened by this art as you let it enter your being.
So I would like you to consider God the artist present to all that God has made, that bears God’s likeness. Let the God in creation, actively present, actively engaging us, impinge upon your senses, arouse your feelings, engage your thoughts and emotions through some part of creation that will speak God to you.
Years ago I read about the “butterfly effect,” the theory that the flap of a butterfly wing in Tokyo may affect a tornado in Texas. As I thought about it, I understood that small events in one place can have a much greater effect somewhere else, and small events now may impact events at a later time. Somehow this reverberates in my head lately as the environment continues to be under siege in our country.
