A Psalm for the Wild-Built
May 29, 2022 - Genesis 1-2: 3
In Becky Chambers’s delightful fantasy novella A Psalm for the Wild-built, main character Dex, discovers an urgent call to hear live cricket song. Crickets no longer live among humans in this imagined future, a product of massive environmental degradation. The songs of crickets can now only be heard on recordings utilized by monks like Dex to create a calming atmosphere. But there is something in Dex that longs to be among wild crickets, a longing that leads him to the wild places no longer tended, tilled, or ventured through by human beings.
The creation story we read in these first few chapters of Genesis takes us to a time before human beings and attempts to address questions asked across cultures and time like: Where do we come from? Who are we? Why are we here? What is life about? Like Jesus and his parables, the ancient people who shared stories orally and eventually wrote down this account, were apparently fond of getting at such large questions with illustrative stories.
While I know both folks who, for understandable reasons, want to read this story as factual and folks who, for understandable reasons, want to reject this story as non-factual, personally, I believe stories can tell truths that go to rich, mysterious places where facts and either/or thinking dwell only uncomfortably.
One of those truths that I hear in this story and hold dear is that as each piece of creation is called into being God deems it good. Some scholars like to term this the “original blessing,” and in this first creation account it is extended to the land, the sea, the plants, and the animals–including humankind or adam, earth-being, made in God’s image. All are called “good” or towb in Hebrew, which means good and also beautiful, bountiful, well, and at ease.
I sometimes think I might be worthy of such a blessing if I do certain things, if I live a certain way or have certain beliefs. But this blessing is bestowed before any of these parts of creation, including human beings, have done anything at all. Yet, they are good. They are beautiful, bountiful, well, and at ease. I don’t know about you but when I imagine the song of crickets, I can feel that goodness, beauty, bounty, wellness, and at ease deep in my bones.
As I followed this character Dex through Chambers’ short little book, I wondered if that’s what Dex was hoping to feel and bike toward. But it caught my breath when a scene in the story hinged on this question of doing good and being good. Dex is convinced that finding their purpose–their best work in the world–will bring them this feeling of being good. It is an unlikely and unexpected companion who points out to Dex that simply being is good–more than good, wonderful even.
That’s not to say perfect or without suffering or without causing harm. This national Memorial Day holiday was created to remember those who gave their lives at the hands of such harm. The horrific harm we have seen in the news the past few weeks is sure to convince us of the imperfection, wells of suffering, and unspeakable violence of which human beings are capable. Perhaps that fresh evidence even makes it harder to hear or believe a message of the wondrous goodness of being. But I would argue that it is precisely the rejection of that wondrous goodness of being that leads us to such harm in the first place.
That rejection of our goodness of being perpetuates the cycle of violence and does little to interrupt it. From our hurt and insecurities we hurt others. Rather, it is faith in that goodness of being–not doing–that allows us to see the goodness of ourselves and everyone else, too. Not the lack of harm. Not the lack of evil-doing. But the persistent, inherent goodness and beauty that remains despite all the harm and wrong.
I’ll admit that is very difficult for me to see when I learn about the Buffalo shooting and the Uvalde shooting. I can’t judge anyone for not being ready to see goodness and beauty in the midst of all that. I can feel so numb, exhausted, infuriated, and heartbroken. It has a kinship, too, to the numbness, exhaustion, anger, and sadness I feel when I try to take in the breadth and depth of what human beings have done and continue to do to woefully harm the natural environment.
Those incredible waves of emotion can cause me to feel frozen, to shut down, or to want to fight anyone who seems to be causing harm. It’s helped me to have trusted friends and long walks to process those emotions with. It’s also helped me to ask myself, so what am I doing about it? Is this a moment where I can say to myself, “And that’s why I do what I do?” Or is this a moment where I say to myself, “Maybe there’s something different I’d like to start doing?”
It’s not that doing something will make me good. It’s that doing something might help others and myself better live in the truth of that persistent goodness, beauty, bounty, and wellness.
In Genesis there are at least two accounts of creation woven together. The second comes after the one we read today. These stories offer slightly different perspectives on how human beings are to live and operate in the created world. Sometimes translators have chosen words like subdue or have dominion over for the first story’s take on humans within creation. The second uses a word most often translated as till, garden, or cultivate. My interpretation of both these stories is that humans have a special role within creation that we might understand as a call to be connected caretakers. We need not do that from a place of superiority. For according to these Genesis stories we are called into being out of the very soil and breathed the ruach breath of life into.
Scientists confirm these atoms and elements that make us up, at their core are the same throughout the known universe. It’s all the same dust from the core of the earth to the farthest flung stars. We are the earth and the earth is us. The song of the crickets is our song, too. We are not separate. We are blessedly connected and humbly called to live out the truth of the goodness with which we were created and to which we will return in this life or the next.
May God help us live like it is so. Amen.
