All praise be yours, my Lord, through Sister Earth, our mother, who feeds us in her sovereignty and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs. (St Francis of Assisi).
From the very source, of this our life and light, there indeed issued forth by a sort of emanation the life, illumination, and soul of creation, Endelechia. She was like a sphere, of vast size yet of fixed dimensions, and such as one might not perceive visually, but only by intellect. (Bernard Silvestris, The Cosmographia).
The point is that the medieval poets were not in the scrape at all. They believed from the outset that Nature was not everything. She was created. She was not God’s highest, much less His only, creature. She had her proper place, below the Moon. She had her appointed duties as God’s vicegerent in that area. Her own lawful subjects, stimulated by rebel angels, might disobey her and become ‘unnatural.’ There were things above her, and things below. It is precisely this limitation and subordination of Nature which sets her free for her triumphant poetic career. By surrendering the dull claim to be everything, she becomes somebody. (C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image).
What follows is a listing of posts written by contributors of Vox Nova (past and present) which might be of interest for Earth Day. It is not an exhaustive list, but I hope it provides a good sampling of what is available here.
General Environmentalism
- Respect for Human Life and Nature Linked
- Called to be Mediators Between God and Creation
- Taking Appalachia Seriously: Implications for Theology and the Church
- “Cheap Coal” and the Logic of Sacrifice
- Environmental Hermeneutics
- Preliminary Ramblings On Population and the Environment
- Concern For the Earth is Incarnational, Not Paganistic
- Pope on Respecting the Environment
- A Eucharistic Experience
- The Spiritual Crisis Behind a Troubled Environment
- Bush’s “Culture of Life” Does not Include Rural Appalachians
Global Warming/Climate Change
- Global Warming: Not a Partisan Issue I
- Global Warming: Not a Partisan Issue II
- Pope Benedict XVI on Climate Change
- Climate Change, Snow and Africa
- Worse than We Thought
- Who Pays the Price for Global Warming?
- Attitudes to Climate Change
- Climate Change and Dogmatic Denial
- The Sad and Alarming State of the Discussion of Global Warming in Catholic Circles
- First Things Touts Global Warming Denialism