February 18: All Creation Longs to Be Transformed
♫ Music:
WEEK TWO INTRODUCTION
TITLE: OUR STRUGGLE WITH SIN
February 18 - February 24
“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” St. Paul famously wrote in Romans 3:23. A big part of the human condition is our ongoing struggle with sin. Sinfulness is a characteristic common to the entire human race; we are all guilty before a holy God. Throughout his letters, Paul paints a graphic picture of what sin is and the ravaging effects it can cause in our lives. Paul describes sin as a stronghold from which all need to be set free. Sin sabotages faith, numbs consciences, and weakens our dependence on the Almighty.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). God solved the dilemma of a wayward people by sending Christ to die in our stead. In John 15:5 Jesus states, “Without me you can do nothing.” Separated from Christ we are condemned, undone. Chaos reigns supreme in our beings. Without his interceding mercy we cannot conquer the sins that continually derail us. In stark contrast, Paul confidently states, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). Jesus is our encouragement in all of life’s situations. The Scriptures tell us that without his strengthening assistance, we can do nothing.
Author Scott Hubbard reminds us, “If we are going to love Christ much, we need to remember the depths from which he saved us. If we are going to treasure all we have in Christ, we need to remember who we were without him. John Newton famously said on his deathbed, ‘I am a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior.’” This week as we contemplate the “wages of sin,” may King David’s prayer be ours: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23–24).
Day 5 - Sunday, February 18
Title: ALL CREATION LONGS TO BE TRANSFORMED
Scripture: Romans 8:19-22 (NKJV)
For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
Poetry & Poet:
“For a Coming Extinction”
by W.S. Merwin
Gray whale
Now that we are sending you to The End
That great god
Tell him
That we who follow you invented forgiveness
And forgive nothing
I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying
When you have left the seas nodding on their stalks
Empty of you
Tell him that we were made
On another day
The bewilderment will diminish like an echo
Winding along your inner mountains
Unheard by us
And find its way out
Leaving behind it the future
Dead
And ours
When you will not see again
The whale calves trying the light
Consider what you will find in the black garden
And its court
The sea cows the Great Auks the gorillas
The irreplaceable hosts ranged countless
And fore-ordaining as stars
Our sacrifices
Join your word to theirs
Tell him
That it is we who are important
ALL CREATION LONGS TO BE TRANSFORMED
In Genesis, God chooses not to make any plants grow out of the earth until there is a human to tend them: “For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground . . . And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” Only then did He “[plant] a garden . . . and there He put the man whom He had formed” (see Genesis 2). Here, the sequence of God’s creative action suggests he made mankind and the natural world to share a vital interdependence.
When humans committed the first sins, their relationship with the natural world broke. This break is encapsulated in their banishment from Eden. Humanity’s call to tend the earth and be fruitful within it became difficult in every possible way. Distance entered our relationships. Isolation threatened. This was a fracture that has caused suffering for every creature.
The magnitude of this suffering is almost impossible to process. It is easy to avoid because many of the creatures involved do not have voices with which they can explain their pain. Like the speaker in Merwin’s poem, we look at magnificent, vulnerable animals like the gray whale and—perhaps feeling numb, or a little helpless—baldly state, “we are sending you to The End.” Merwin’s speaker continues: “I write as though you could understand / And I could say it / One must always pretend something / Among the dying.”
In the first of today’s paintings, a bear cub sits on a tree trunk and surveys an astonishing landscape. The air, sky, earth, and water are thick with color, motion, life. The viewer almost feels like he is there with the bear cub—caught up by birdsong and the solid rush of feathered wings; the scent of damp earth and woody pines; the cool pressure of the wind.
In the second image, an adult bear surveys a portion of forest that appears devastated by wildfire or deforestation. There is one bird—an owl perched on a bare branch—and little color. One can almost catch the forlorn, dry scent of charred wood. Pale hints of life scrabble back from rocky earth, but where Uttech’s first image offers a vision of communion between creatures, the second suggests the deafening stillness of isolation.
In Lent we consider how our sins have isolated us from the right relationship with created beings and God. We do this so we can repent and be restored to communion with all that exists.
God made the natural world. God loves everything He has made. And like everything He has made, God has bound himself to bring the natural world to a good end. Thus, we must ask: How are we called to love what God has made? How is our vocation diminished when we neglect our responsibility to steward the earth?
Today’s Scripture tells us, “the creation also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” And humans are called to be channels of Christ’s self-sacrificial love to that creation.
Let us follow the costly pattern of love set forth for us by Christ. As created beings called to be stewards of the earth, let us love creation the way Christ loves us — which is to say, let us lament its pain. Let us enter its suffering. Let us commit to work for its healing and new life.
Prayers:
“Lord, our Lord — how majestic is your name in all the earth! . . . When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim in the paths of the seas. Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
— excepted from Psalm 8, NIV
“O God, forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee; Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
— Collect for the 19th Sunday after Trinity in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
Alea Peister
Copywriter for Deloitte Digital
Alumna, Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Art #1:
Nin Maminawendam
Tom Uttech
2010
Oil on linen
84 x 96 in.
Chazen Museum of Art
University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
About the Art #2:
Tichi Bwa Wabang
Tom Uttech
2016
Lithograph on paper
20 x 22 in.
Inspired by wide expanses of unspoiled wilderness in his native Wisconsin and Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada, artist Tom Uttech’s paintings are fantastic imaginings, often populated with hosts of birds and other animals that traverse the landscape in a flurry of natural diversity. His beautiful paintings feed our expectations of the wilderness—a place that is both raw and wild, familiar and welcoming. Uttech’s paintings take their names from words and phrases of the indigenous North American Ojibwe people. Uttech alludes to local craft traditions in his handmade pine frames, wide and often decorated with animal silhouettes and paw prints. Of his work Tom Uttech says, "Since these pictures are about nature and our role in it, the knowledge gained might grow into love of nature, and thus into concern for its well being. This concern could lead to action to protect nature and, therefore, ourselves. The best response to my paintings would be for you to go straight to the wildest piece of land you can find and sit down to let it wash over you and tell you secrets."
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/51e5921ee4b0c6df9a7cb5df/t/524b32fae4b0248f64d49186/1380659962605/PRESS_UttechFall2009AAQ.pdf
About the Artist #1 & #2:
Tom Uttech (b. 1942) is an American landscape painter and photographer. His inspiration has come from travels to northern Minnesota and the Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario. Born in Merrill, Wisconsin, Uttech received a B.A. from Layton School of Art in Milwaukee (1965) and an M.F.A. from the University of Cincinnati (1976). After completing his studies, Uttech became a professor of art at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee until 1998. Uttech is known for his moody depictions of North American woodlands and animals that inhabit them. Museums in Georgia, Arkansas, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Arizona hold works in their collections by Uttech. His gallery exhibition at Alexandre Gallery in New York in 2023 showcased his latest paintings and raised awareness about the decline in wilderness areas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Uttech
https://hyperallergic.com/404310/beer-with-a-painter-tom-uttech/
http://philippe-alexandre.squarespace.com/tom-uttech
About the Music:
“Lux Aeterna” from the film Requiem for a Dream
Requiem for a Dream is a 2000 American psychological drama film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher McDonald, and Marlon Wayans. It is based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Hubert Selby Jr., with whom Aronofsky wrote the screenplay. The film depicts four characters affected by drug addiction and how it alters their physical and emotional states. "Lux Aeterna" is an orchestral composition by Clint Mansell, the leitmotif of Requiem for a Dream, and the penultimate piece in the film's soundtrack. The popularity of this piece led to its use in popular culture outside the film. In celebration of Requiem for a Dream’s twentieth anniversary, the Kronos Quartet performed Mansell's iconic "Lux Aeterna" from the film's original score at Bing Concert Hall at Stanford University.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_for_a_Dream
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux_Aeterna_(Mansell)
Lyrics: Instrumental
About the Composer:
Clinton Darryl Mansell (b. 1963) is an English musician, singer, and composer who moved to the United States and embarked on a career as a film score composer. He partnered with American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky and has composed the scores for his films including Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, Black Swan, and Noah. Mansell is best known for the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack, particularly the film's composition "Lux Aeterna" and a re-orchestrated version titled "Requiem for a Tower" that was created for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers trailer, both of which have been featured in multiple advertisements, films, film trailers, video games, and other media. Other films featuring Mansell's scores include Sahara, Moon, and Stoker.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Mansell
About the Performers:
The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco, California. They have been in existence, with a rotating membership of musicians, for over forty years. The quartet covers a broad range of musical genres including folk, experimental, preclassical early music, movie soundtracks, jazz, tango, as well as contemporary classical music. More than nine hundred works have been written for them. Violinist David Harrington, from Seattle, Washington, founded the quartet in 1973. With almost forty studio albums to their credit and performances worldwide, they have been called “...the most famous ‘new music’ group in the world,” and have been praised in philosophical studies of music for the inclusiveness of their repertoire. They have worked with many minimalist composers including John Adams, Arvo Pärt, George Crumb, Henryk Górecki, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Kevin Volans, and Laurie Anderson.
https://www.kronosquartet.org/
About the Poetry and Poet:
William Stanley Merwin (1927–2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose. During the 1960s, Merwin's work was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, his writing influence derived from an interest in philosophy and ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he wrote prolifically and was dedicated to the restoration of the island's rainforests. Merwin received many honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1971, 2009); the National Book Award for Poetry (2005); and the Tanning Prize, one of the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets. In 2010, the Library of Congress named him the seventeenth United States Poet Laureate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._S._Merwin
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-s-merwin
About the Devotion Writer:
Alea Peister
Copywriter for Deloitte Digital
Alumna, Biola University
Alea is a current Creative Writing MFA student at Seattle Pacific University. She is passionate about the relationship between creativity and prayer, which she explores in ministry with her church community (St. Matthew’s in Newport Beach, CA). She daylights as a copywriter at Deloitte Digital, and is an alumna of Biola’s English Department and the Torrey Honors College. You can follow her writerly escapades on Instagram at @alea_peister and Substack at aleapeister.substack.com.