Listen

I appreciate the bible as much for its poetry and rhetorical craft as for any spiritual guidance. Actually, I think the bible's literary qualities are responsible for most of the impact its spiritual and and moral message has. Of course, there are lines that can be savored for their words alone, or that provoke ideas that are interesting without reference to any narrowly drawn theology.

For me, one of these is the opening of Psalm 19 which we read in church yesterday:

The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the firmament shows his handiwork.
One day tells its tale to another,
and one night imparts knowledge to another.
Although they have no words or language,
and their voices are not heard,
Their sound has gone out into all lands,
and their message to the ends of the world.

I'm no biblical scholar, though my hunch is the psalmist was being as metaphorical here as any modern writer would be. Nonetheless, I'm fascinated by the quasi-animistic vision in these lines. Creation may bear the imprint of a creator, though here it, even the passage of time within it(which if the physicists are right is perceptible only because of creation, of the establishment of some defined place in space)is imbued with a life, a meaning, of great significance and without any necessary connection to human beings and their concerns. To take a theological turn, one might say these verses limn a relation of the creation to God that goes beyond being a "general revelation" of divinity.

The biblical religions have been accused of contributing to environmental destruction by portraying humans at the center of creation and subordinating nonhuman nature to the needs and cultural prerogatives of people. There is truth in this charge, but it overlooks biblical passages that offer a contrary view. These are found throughout the Pslams, in Genesis 2, and in pronouncements of the prophets. (They do seem concentrated in the Hebrew bible.) Of course, adherents of these faiths have generally disregarded them too.

Would that be different, I wonder, if people, believers and unbelievers alike, could hear the language of the days and nights, and of the earth over which they spread. I wonder if we cannot simply because we forgot, or never took the trouble to learn.