“Where there is no vision the people perish”
(Proverbs 29:18)
In biblical language the word “vision” means the sense of the presence of God. If we see the world with this sense, we see everything as a manifestation of the work and presence of God. The alternative is to see the world through a godless lens. That is, to see everything simply in terms of mechanical cause and effect, all functioning in the absence of the Creator. Biblical vision means seeing the integral relationship between God, nature, and ourselves as interwoven strands of a single fabric. We live in a time when the godless lens is the default position, when all things are seen as “there” for us humans to appropriate for our own purposes. William Blake the great Christian visionary presents a question and his answer showing the contrast between the secular, human-centered view and the biblical vision undergirding creation care:
“O no, no, I see an innumerable company of the Heavenly Host crying ‘Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.’”
William Blake,
“On A Vision of the Last Judgment”
We have been largely acculturated to see the world as a set of random furnishings in the absence of God, just as Blake’s questioner describes the sun at dawn. Yet through continually choosing and affirming the vision, learning to see the world as God’s work and presence as Blake does, we are in a position to do our part in Creation Care.
~Don Johnson
