Chronicle No. 12

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Creation, a pact of love

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In 2007, Al Gore, former vice-president of Bill Clinton, went to war with the film An Inconvenient Truth. He announced the climate bomb, ten thousand times more devastating than the nuclear charge that a Stalinist from North Korea has just detonated to show his strength. It is a remarkable crusade led by Al Gore. Global warming is driving us straight into the wall. The old men and women who suffocate during the summer understood that it was getting hotter and hotter on earth. It's a certainty.

The leaves of the trees fall in August... The glaciers melt. In fifty years, they will be reduced by three quarters and the sea level will have risen by two to three meters. Holland will be swallowed up, the Ile de Ré under water. Whole countries will disappear. As for whales and seals, which cannot survive without their pack ice, their living space will have diminished so much that they will no longer be able to reproduce normally. And how many other living forms in the world will disappear… Quick, freezers for polar bears!

The climate crisis threatens our civilization and our existence.

We are right to fight terrorism and protect ourselves from fanatics. But be careful, the tree hides the forest! Crisis
the most serious one that we have not yet seriously fought is this climate bomb.

What should be done ?
Who among us has not been amazed by a flower, the seasons or a sunrise? God's creation brings harmony and beauty to us. Creation is a nuptial gesture, a marriage of love, an alliance between man and God. The attached man
his hands to those of God in creation, he is His co-creator: it is the genius of the believer to believe it.

I admire the balconies covered with flowers in the heart of Paris. I admire the people who cultivate these tiny paradises. Creation
is everyone's business. The polluter is not the other, it's everyone, and we urgently need to change our practices. Even if it means paying more for products whose production process respects the natural environment. The environment is no longer the business of a few sectors, it is the business of everyone: of our leaders, of all the presidents of the world. It is also our business.
The polluter is me. Man can, at his convenience, make nature a paradise or a dumping ground; of the earth, a theater of war or a place of brotherhood. It is the make or break of everyone.

For us Christians, God is love, spirit, freedom. Creation can therefore only be situated in this register. To unbelievers, I say that the arrangement of matter is too wonderfully complex and subtle for nature not to be the product of thought.

The universe and nature are not one thing, but a love that comes our way, a sharing and a gift, a gesture of love that requires reciprocity. That's why I say it's "a nuptial gesture." Respond to the impetus of God who made a marriage of love between man and nature!

Every being, from the flea to the hippopotamus, from the humblest mushrooms in our forests to the evening star, is a part of creation. Every human being is capable of marveling at the spectacle of the works of the Creator. Every human being can enter into communication with the One who, out of love, created everything.

Guy GILBERT

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