Charles Wei column: The Creator in the midst of creation | Local

I was born and raised in California, so I am no stranger to the beauty of the natural world. The California coast is one of the most breathtaking places you could ever see, but it’s very different from the landlocked mountains here that seem to reach high enough to brush against the heavens.

I love looking out over Helena from my vantage point at the church, and seeing the snow-covered mountains in the distance. The way the mountains encircle the plains where the city rests is so beautiful.

This is the first time that I’ve lived in a place where it snows, and even after a full winter of snow, seeing it falling from the sky still captivates me. I love the way that it covers everything in a blanket of white, and how it takes on the slightest of pink hues when the sun is setting.

This is a place where a person has to be in tune with nature, because nature is so much a part of everyday life here. That’s why I was so surprised the first time I talked to the search committee at Plymouth Congregational Church and found out that they didn’t have a Green Team to deal with environmental concerns, nor did they ever talk about the environment on Sundays.

Being involved with the mainline Christian denominations in California, talking about the environment was part and parcel of what we did at church. I took it for granted, and assumed, even in Montana, that a United Church of Christ congregation would hold up environmental care as one of its core tenants.

As a youth minister in California, I knew that the kids that I worked with were all extremely concerned about the state of the world that they would be inheriting. I all but chastised the Plymouth search committee for not being more involved in the effort to take care of the planet, thinking that it might be my one and only chance to talk to them, and so I was brutally honest.

Because of that, I didn’t think the interview went very well, and I assumed that I wouldn’t be hearing from them again. So, imagine my surprise when they contacted me a month later to continue our conversation and then ask me to be their pastor.

For a long time, there seemed to be a disconnect in our nation between God and the natural world. Environmentalism and Christianity seemed to be at odds with one another, which is strange, because the first chapter of the Bible describes how God created the natural world. The earth is a gift from God. Shouldn’t we take care of something beautiful that a loved one gives to us?

Imagine if you had built a home as a gift for someone who you really cared about, and that person knew that they could live there as long as they wanted, but that when they left that home, it would be gifted to another person who was just as important to you. And, say you went to visit one day, and that person had just absolutely trashed the house that you gave them. There’s mold growing everywhere, they’ve tracked mud through the carpet, there’s holes in the walls. How would that make you feel? We need to treat this gift, this home, that’s been given to us with the respect that it deserves.

I have come to learn that there are plenty of people here in Helena who care about the environment. And, how could you not, when two of the most famous national parks in the country, Yellowstone and Glacier, are right in your backyard?

With the growing awareness of our climate crisis, more and more people across the religious spectrum have come to embrace the idea of “creation care.” More and more, we hear about people finding God in wild places, while hiking, or surfing, or fly-fishing.

Of course, finding God in the wilderness is nothing new, there are several biblical precedents for it. I think the reason these wild spaces resonate so much with us is because God made them, just like God made us. God’s fingerprints are evident in nature. Nature reveals God’s presence to us, and we can’t help but recognize our shared origin. We, too, are a part of nature, created by God.

God has given the Earth into our care, but we haven’t done the best job of taking care of it. We respect God by respecting the Earth. And, we have to preserve our wild spaces, not only for our physical survival, but for our spiritual survival, as well. None of the myriad other causes that we might care about matter if we don’t have a planet to live on. It’s all tied together.

So, go out into the wild spaces, and see what you can find there. Be nurtured and fed, there. Meet the Creator in the midst of creation, and remember how important it all is. And, let’s all do our part to take care of this planet that is our home, before it’s too late.