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3 - From creation to re-creation: nature and the naked ape

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2014

Frances Young
Frances Young
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Summary

Prelude

The minister leads in the coffin, intoning the traditional texts:

  • I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whoso liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

  • We brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.

The grandmother is the first to hold the new-born infant in her arms. Gazing at the tiny face, she hears the child named with her own name, the maiden name of the baby's great-great-grandmother, a given name for four generations. She's awed by the continuities of generations, their dying and birthing.

The cyclists crash down the gears and pedal fast up the steep little rise, eyes caught by the dark mist of bluebells in the wood glimpsed through the hedge. On the way they've heard the squawk of a pheasant, birds chattering in woods and larks singing above fields; they've seen a meadow of cowslips, ramsons in verges, primroses on banks, blackthorn in hedges, delicate carpets of wood anemones and the purple faces of violets. Exercise induces deep breathing, a racing pulse and the biochemistry of euphoria; the sheer physical joy of living produces insistent beats of heartfelt praise – earthed in belonging to the natural order.

Type
Chapter
Information
God's Presence
A Contemporary Recapitulation of Early Christianity
 , pp. 92 - 145
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2013

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