The Riches of the Creation Tradition

It was an astonishing discovery when I heard that there was a Christian contemplative tradition that was creation-centred; that many medieval contemplatives and some theologians always had a very embodied view of human life and of the embeddedness of humankind within nature, rather than being focussed always on the future and on rewards in heaven.

This tradition has become much better known in recent decades, brought to our awareness by theologians such as Sallie McFague and Matthew Fox. Key contributors such as Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich and Meister Eckhart, have become well known and often  appear in our eco contemplative liturgies. It was Matthew Fox who, when speaking at St James’s in 1987, proclaimed that “Mother Earth is dying”.  For me, that was the foundational moment that sparked the beginnings of the Earth Justice work at St James’s, that has now grown in so many directions.

Discovering this tradition meant that a treasure house was opened up to us, which has continued to inspire, stimulate, challenge and nourish up to our present day. The Centre for Creation Spirituality, which was based at St James, arranged an evening series to explore this tradition, called Visions of Creation which then was published as a book –  Eds. Eileen Conn and James Stewart.  This covered mystics such as 7^th century Cuthbert of Lindisfarne and 9^th century Irish philosopher and theologian John Scotus Eriugena, through to Thomas Hardy and Teilhard de Chardin.

Hildegard of Bingen 12^th century Rhineland mystic, abbess, scientist, composer and author, is famous for her colourful mandalas such as the Cosmic Tree. Hildegard had visions from an early age. She sometimes experienced the living light, which showed her a vision of the whole of life and she felt compelled to preach Christian doctrine and to proclaim the justice of God:

“All living creatures are sparks from the radiation of God’s brilliance, and these sparks emerge from God like the rays of the sun. The soul is a living breath of the spirit. Being fruitful depends on the moistness and the presence of spirit, the breath of life.” Her idea of viriditas is often translated as greening power. She stressed the relationship of everything to the whole and encouraged engaging all our senses in our experience of life. Her vision of creation was of an organic whole, pulsing with life, and with everything connected. This sense of all things being held together in unity is the role of the Cosmic Christ.

The Cosmic Tree, from the Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen.

We have our own contemplatives.  Miriam Mackie, composer and long term member of St James’s, now in the West Country, talked of beholding nature:

“My new practice happens on my local walks. I live only a few moments from woodlands and meadows, ponds and trees. I watch everything as I go by – and this only works if I am on my own – I let one sight arrest me. It might be the way the sun glints onto branches, or the intense green of the moss on the floor of the forest. It might be a whole vista of white may blossom, or the delicate icy frost tracing a leaf. However familiar, however many times I have been here, there is a new growing, changing, blessing. I stop. And look. And stay, and look some more. I am “beholding”, for as long as I can. The longer I behold, the more I see, and the more I feel the deep rootedness of God’s creation, the blessing of it, and ourselves a part of it.”