Mark V: Caring for All Creation

“You shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.”
— Isaiah 58:11

Gardens do not exist by accident.

They are places of intentional nurture, faithful service, and continual transformation.

Nothing in a garden grows through force. Life unfolds through patient tending, attentive care, and trust in processes that remain largely unseen. We can prepare the soil, provide water and light, protect what is vulnerable, and create conditions for flourishing—but ultimately, life carries within itself a mystery we cannot control.

This image has become one of the most meaningful ways I understand caring for creation.

Creation encompasses far more than the natural world alone. It includes the earth beneath our feet and the communities we build upon it. It includes our bodies, our relationships, our creativity, our spiritual lives, and the people entrusted to our care. To care for creation is to recognize the sacred worth of life and then participate intentionally in its flourishing.

For me, this work takes three interconnected forms: nurture, service, and transformation.

Nurture

Every person bears the image of God.

That image is never erased by illness, age, disability, addiction, trauma, poverty, failure, or any of the countless experiences that can cause human beings to question their worth.

To nurture another person begins by remembering this truth—and sometimes helping them remember it themselves:

You are still beloved.

Nurture begins with attention.

Listening deeply.

Honoring dignity.

Protecting vulnerability.

Encouraging creativity.

Making room for joy.

Holding silence when words are unnecessary.

Creating spaces where people are safe enough to become more fully themselves.

The same principle extends to the natural world. Caring for the earth begins with paying attention to it. The changing seasons, mountains, gardens, animals, water, sky, and soil remind us that humanity does not stand apart from creation. We belong within it.

Jesus repeatedly directed people's attention toward the natural world: birds, lilies, seeds, vines, wheat, trees, water, wind. Creation was not simply scenery for his teaching; it revealed something about the nature of God and the rhythms of life.

Nurture teaches me that growth is rarely dramatic.

Like seeds beneath the soil, much of what becomes beautiful begins where no one can see it.

Service

Jesus consistently revealed leadership through service.

He knelt to wash feet.

He welcomed children.

He fed people.

He touched those others avoided.

He crossed social boundaries.

He remained present with people who were suffering.

His life continually reminds me that compassion is not simply an emotion.

Compassion is an embodied practice.

Service means participating in the wellbeing of something beyond ourselves.

Sometimes that happens through professional caregiving. Sometimes it happens through teaching, music, advocacy, hospitality, volunteering, parenting, friendship, community involvement, or simply noticing that someone needs help and responding.

I have encountered sacred service in countless places—in hospitals and nursing facilities, around dinner tables, through music, in community gatherings, among veterans, within families, and in quiet conversations between people willing to listen to one another.

These experiences have taught me that no single person is the center of another person's healing.

God is already present before we arrive.

My task is not to carry God into a room, a relationship, or a community.

My task is to recognize where Love is already at work and faithfully join it.

Service therefore requires humility. Like a gardener, I can participate in growth without believing that I am responsible for producing it.

Transformation

Gardens teach us that transformation is often hidden.

Roots deepen before branches grow.

Seeds disappear before flowers bloom.

Trees release what they can no longer carry.

Winter gives way to spring according to rhythms beyond our control.

Human transformation often follows similar patterns.

We tend to imagine transformation as something dramatic—a sudden revelation, a major accomplishment, or a completely changed life. Yet some of the most profound transformations happen almost imperceptibly.

Someone discovers the courage to forgive.

A relationship begins to heal.

A grieving person laughs again.

A community becomes more welcoming.

A person learns to trust their own voice.

Someone who has spent years believing they are unworthy begins to recognize their inherent dignity.

A family learns to speak honestly with one another.

A song opens something that words could not reach.

These moments may appear small, but they reveal the quiet movement of Spirit continually bringing forth new life.

My own formation has taught me that caring for creation also requires caring for the self.

I cannot advocate for wholeness while neglecting my own.

Practices of contemplative prayer, music, poetry, movement, yoga, time in nature, reflection, rest, and honest relationship have become important forms of stewardship in my life. They return me to myself and remind me that my own body, spirit, creativity, and relationships are also part of the creation I have been entrusted to tend.

This, too, is sacred work.

Caring for the Whole

The United Church of Christ's call to care for all creation invites us into an expansive understanding of stewardship.

Certainly, it includes our responsibility toward the earth—protecting water, land, air, animals, ecosystems, and the generations who will inherit what we leave behind.

But caring for creation also asks us to consider the environments we create for one another.

Do people flourish in our presence?

Do our communities protect the vulnerable?

Do our relationships honor dignity?

Do our institutions serve life?

Do we care for our own bodies and spirits with the same compassion we extend to others?

Do we recognize ourselves as participants within creation rather than masters standing above it?

These questions have expanded my understanding of what it means to care.

I have come to believe that much of faithful living is, in some way, an act of gardening.

We prepare the soil.

We plant what we hope will grow.

We water faithfully.

We protect what is vulnerable.

We prune what no longer gives life.

We rest when the season requires rest.

We celebrate what blooms.

And sometimes, despite everything we do, we simply wait.

We cannot force the harvest.

We can only participate faithfully in creating the conditions where life has the possibility to flourish.

As I continue growing into my calling, I hope to remain a faithful gardener:

One who nurtures with tenderness.
Serves with humility.
Protects what is vulnerable.
Makes room for transformation.
And never loses faith in the life-giving work of Love.