Just a different perspective

Mark Vernon noted yesterday the different view of nature inherent in Shintoism, the widely practiced religion in Japan.

In Christianity, we view ourselves as the center of the creation. By our greed, we interpret the Genesis call to “dominion” over the creation as license to use it to our own ends, rather than a command to serve it as fellow creatures. And so, when the powerful forces inherent in nature show forth, we are angered, offended, cheated.

In Shintoism nature is known to be more powerful than humanity and is honored as such. Earthquakes and tsunamis, hurricanes and storms, are reminders that we are put here as part of a thing and not the whole of the thing itself.

A very different attitude. One that would change much.

It would not prevent such tragedies. It would do little to decrease the suffering they cause. But it would change us to be reminded in this moment of history, as in all those past and those yet to come, that we are not the Masters of this Universe but merely its servants, as we are servants of the One who created it all.

Power, the waves seem to say, is much more than your mortal brains may comprehend. Your place here calls for humility and grace, in the ways you treat the Lord’s creation and each other.

May we work together with and pray for those who suffer in this time in full awareness that it is only by the grace of God that our places are not reversed. Let us look with meekness toward the waves that are yet to rise.