Nature and Food
I don’t normally write about nature, but I am concerned about it as I believe that we ought to take care of all of God’s creation. So, here is a quote from a book that I’m re-reading here in Zambia. It’s called For the Life of the World and it’s by Alexander Schmemann. I read this book in college in a class taught by Craig Keen and it is perhaps the most impacting theology book I’ve ever read. Schmemann writes:
“Things treated merely as things in themselves destroy themselves because only in God have they any life. The world of nature, cut off from the source of life, is a dying world. For one who thinks food in itself is the source of life, eating is communion with death. Food itself is dead, it is life that has died and it must be kept in refrigerators like a corpse … Food in itself can produce only the appearance of life.”
Keith, Neal, and a bunch of my other friends I have a feeling will be instantly attracted to this quote but it took me a few minutes to understand. It brings to question the idea of life, what life truly is, and where life finds its meaning. I can honestly say that I have found desperation in life. I have been tempted to despair at the prospect of life as being an end in itself and this is why I like the above quote so much.
I don’t want the appearance of life. I want life in abundance.
Amanda (March 28, 2009, 4:02 pm).
Good find Matt. So often I feel like I am living in a shell of my true self. Mostly, I feel like that when I living a life separate from God.