Litany for Creation

God of life, in the beginning of our story you moved over the waters.

You spoke and there was light, you spoke and the story of life began.

Through the eons the world you created has changed over and over again,

some forms of life have died out, to be replaced by new ones,

mountains have risen up, rivers have worn away rock,

ice sheets have expanded and contracted, lakes have flooded and receded.

Our story tells us that You have given us a special role

in the ongoing life of this tiny blue ball floating in the heavens.

God who has created and is creating

Help us to be good stewards of the world you have created

God of imagination, we have done well with the world into which we have been placed.

Using the gifts that You have given us we have accomplished amazing things.

With each new generation we find that we can do more, make more, have more.

We have moved from knocking rocks together to computer-guided laser sculpting,

from a daily struggle to find food to shrink-wrapped meat at the local supermarket,

from a time when the environment controlled our activity

to a time where we believe we can control the environment.

And so we need to remember the wisdom:

with great power comes great responsibility.

God who has created and is creating

Help us to be good stewards of the world you have created

And yet, God of covenant,

we have to admit that we have failed to keep our end of the bargain.

As a collective we have not always thought thoroughly about the consequences of our choices.

In our excitement about what was possible, we have forgotten to ask what is wise,

in our focus on the present and our push to improve on the past

we have not fully comprehended how we will impact the future.

So now we look around and see that the environment we thought we could control

is changing in ways we did not predict and are not sure we can manage.

Is it time for us to rethink our assumptions about the world and our place in it?

God who has created and is creating

Help us to be good stewards of the world you have created

God of our future hope,

over the last few decades we have started to ask harder questions.

We have started to wonder what we will leave to future generations,

we have started to rethink what the old story meant

when it told us we were given dominion over the earth,

we have started to question the wisdom of our collective choices of the past.

God who has created and is creating

Help us to be good stewards of the world you have created

God, eons ago you looked at the creation and called it very good.

You called us into partnership with you in caring for it.

Almost 14 billion years from the Big Bang have brought us to this point,

where will we go from here?

As we move forward, we seek your help.

Help us to continue to ask the hard questions

about our relationship with the world in which we live.

Help us to re-shape that relationship into one of co-dependence rather than master and servant.

Give us the wisdom to use the gifts we have been given so that they are blessings

for us, for our neighbours, and for our children and grandchildren

even unto the seventh generation.

And may our amazing imagination and inventiveness,

along with Your Guiding Spirit,

show us the path that leads to a time when we can say with confidence that

we are living up to the covenant into which You have invited us.

God who has created and is creating

Help us to be good stewards of the world you have created

So be it.  AMEN.