Thoughts on stewardship

These are two journal entries I have written so far on my current trip to the mountains. They are mostly the result of a book I am reading called "Braiding Sweetgrass." I would recommend it to anyone, although the content might be very challenging for some of you if you choose to read it.

7-29-14:
We Christians are not as smart as we think we are. Our knowledge of God is so incomplete, yet we forget this fact. Do we really believe God hardly cares how we treat the earth? The theological ideas of "stewardship," "in the world, but not of it," and "being made in the image of God" have collided in such a negative way that we have developed a "god complex" of our own. Sure, we may be valued over other creations, but we came last, which carries more meaning than you might typically think about. Other creations are also highly valued by God. Why would they be a part of the web of life if they were not valuable? I think we need to seriously re-evaluate our theology regarding the care of the earth. We should certainly live as spiritual beings, but this earth is not without spirit itself. We should not treat this as solely our home, but truly as stewards whose Master will return to judge our stewardship.

7-31-14:
The world cannot function solely on taking, neither can it function solely on giving. True relationships are always reciprocal. However, when we walk into the woods, we only take, and rarely give of ourselves. We kill biting insects instead of giving our blood, and shoo away anything which tries to rest on us. I'm NOT saying we should allow ourselves to be eaten alive or expose ourselves to disease, but this is symbolic of our attitude in general regarding nature. We see it as something which only exists for our benefit, not as an entity we have been taking advantage of for too long. Heaven forbid we even start viewing plants and animals as fellow beings which also have a right to exist! What vast changes would be heralded by such a shift in perspective!