HYMN INTERPRETATION: The Greening of Hymnody, Part 2: "Charge Our Hearts with Wonder"

In Part 1 of this column I made the point that while we do need to be good stewards of the natural world, the sort of stewardship we exercise is dependent to a large extent on the fundamental orientation which lies behind it. If our orientation is human-centred, i.e. anthropocentric, it can have disastrous consequences arising from the assumption that our wisdom is superior in all respects to that of the eco-system or for that matter even the entire Cosmos. With the best will in the world, our preoccupation with applying simplistic analysis to complex problems can lead to destructive outcomes. The anthropocentric orientation embodies a "power over" attitude rather than a "power-sharing" one. To change to having an eco-orientation, we will need to ask the question of any particular action what its effect is upon the ecosystem as a whole and also upon particular species. We need to remember that our misuse of our scientific advances has led to human beings becoming the greatest predators on the face of the Earth and also that our irresponsible attitude to birth control has enabled us to move beyond the population regulatory mechanisms of nature to create a global explosion of human beings. The long and short of it is that while we cannot survive without the ecosystem, the ecosystem can survive very well without the presence of any human beings! Part of the destructive orientation that we have towards nature is also embodied in the dominant economic ideology of the Free Market. In it the natural world is seen primarily as a field of competition in which, as Darwin perceived, the survival of the fittest is the primary feature. While this is undoubtedly part of ecological reality, it is only a part. Recently, there has been a new development in the biological sciences, with people such as Lynn Margulis taking a new look at the process of evolution. In her book Symbiotic Planet,1 she points out that complex organisms could not have evolved without a symbiotic relationship between individual cells. (Symbiosis can be defined as a mutually beneficial linked relationship.) So it now appears that competition occurs within the wider setting of cooperation. This, of course, is entirely consistent with the Way which Jesus spoke of and explains why the first followers of Christ (the followers of the "Way") initially held all their goods in common (Acts 2:44). This way of life is best described as "symbiotic communalism," rather than "communism," since that word has become tainted through its association with distorted forms of Marxism. It was all the foregoing which led me to write the hymn "Charge our hearts with wonder" for the Hymn Festival. In particular I would like to draw your attention to verse 4 with its reference to the food chain as being "one Communion binding life on Earth." I wrote this verse because I could find no other hymn which incorporated this idea. (If any readers know of such a hymn, could they please let me know.) The motivation for writing verse 4 was threefold: First, a friend of mine described to me how before eating any meal she gave thanks for all the other life forms who involuntarily had given up their life so that she might continue to live. Those of us who live in cities are often insulated from the fact that we are still predators regardless of whether we are carnivores or vegetarians. …