And He gave dominion over…….

I was reading posts on LinkedIn and a lovely young man who is doing his very best for the environment put a post up about our ‘stewardship of the Earth’. I get it. I really do. It’s time to start caring, as we don’t seem to have bothered until now, so fixated have we been on using her resources to make money.

But for some reason that word, stewards, clanged with me. Having been a student of the Bible for many years I knew where it came from, Genesis 1:26-28 King James Version. It was tempting to think that’s where our hegemony of the Earth and everything on her came from, but I have just written a book tracing it back much further than Christianity, or Judaism. But no matter what, it certainly gave legitimacy to an already rampant trend.

So being me, I commented as such and got mixed responses. The one that kept me going was someone who said it was just words and semantics. But words matter. Maybe what John said in that same Bible was worth remembering: “In the beginning was the Word”. He went on the extrapolate that: “the Word was God”. Let’s put it another way: Gods Word is Law”. And so it became. A boon for the patriarchal movement that were determined to turn everything into a product.

However, what to me seems the essence of all this is that the Word (of God) told a story, as words do. And that story is so far imbedded in our psyche that we take it as the only story. We are still telling it. We know better than the Earth what it needs. That to me is arrogance. That story has populated our minds so much that we now actually believe that we know best for everything and everyone. We all do it: give unsolicited advice in the belief that we actually know best for the person who has just shared their world with us. And not just ‘persons’ either. All the animals on the land, the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. I know I have heard that somewhere before as well.

What have we done with this ‘dominion’? As we were always going to, having that story in our minds, we made a mess of everyone else’s world. As a result, species have gone extinct, plants have lost their diversity and all-important insects are being destroyed because we, in our ignorance, thought they were of no value. We are learning that we all live in a complex Web of Life, everything dependent on everything else for survival. And now it’s our turn to be the victims of this mindset.

The commenter also pointed out that we must be good stewards so that the Earth continues to provide goods and services for us. Now that did it. (I kept my cool). I had to explain that this idea is actually the problem, as the Earth was always about much more than what we, alone, need. To which he added but the indigenous peoples of the world also were stewards. Oh dear. Now we are right there where we needed to be.

The indigenous peoples of the pre-agrarian world did NOT see themselves as stewards with dominion over everything. They saw, to the best of my knowledge, Life and Earth as this great being that they were rightfully in awe of, co-operating with, relying on for their well-being: just as we do. But we have forgotten our place in the greater scheme of things, believing that we have that greater scheme. We’ve got it all sussed. However, Life doesn’t think so. It’s doing its level best to contain the damage we are doing, because, as far as I can see, we do not know what we need to do.

So, let’s go back to the Word. Perhaps it’s time to be humble, building a new story of balance and co-operation. To give up the concept of competition, along with words like dominion, and stewardship, allowing ourselves, like our ancestors, to be in awe of the majesty of this being we are part of. Life on Earth will do what it has to do, because we haven’t really got a clue. If we’re wise, we will start with our own internal stories, come down of our high horse and maybe recognize our powerlessness to know what’s best for anything. We could start by listening to our own senses and feelings, making our own choices, allowing others the space to make theirs.

In the end, if we do what’s in our hearts, rather than the programed stories in our mind, what needs to happen surely will.