God’s Amazing Creations

In an out of the way corner in the chapel of St. Francis of Assisi is a small statue of the saint, head bent towards the ground as if he is studying the dirt, or observing the grass sprouting out of the ground. This is an odd posture for a saint, normally they look heavenwards with eyes full of devotion and piety. This statue and its posture remind me of a story friends used to talk about the late great Freda Whitlam, yes, Gough’s sister and long-term member of my home church in Penrith. I found her to be a formidable woman, confident, knowledgeable and a little bit intimidating but that was not the real Freda. One day when my friends drove into Freda’s Street to take her to a church event, they were astonished to see her out on the nature strip bent over as if the ground was the most amazing thing she had ever seen. “What on earth are you doing” they asked as they pulled up beside her. Freda replied, “Oh I was just watching the ants, they are such amazing creatures”. Both Freda and St. Francis could see something of God in the created world which has often been described as the first bible and the first incarnation. In the beginning God speaks and the world springs into being, through this divine act all things are in their own way sacred. If we humans were more aware of the divinity in all things, would we have exploited the earth bringing us perilously close to ecological disaster? Would we have colonised other territories with little regard to the land ‘s first inhabitants? Would we so easily make the distinction between friends and enemies? When we can begin to see the sacred, the divine in all living things, the world no longer seems such a terrifying place. God is everywhere, all about us, in the rising sun, in the ants scurrying around in the dirt and even in the face of the stranger. (That reminds me of another St. Francis story but that can wait until next month!