The Angela Hospice Butterfly Garden, August 2024.
If you have ever been in the Care Center you may have noticed the intentionality around including nature in the architecture; how every room has a large window and view into the natural world. The landscape and water features are also no mistake as they are meant to evoke our senses and wonder for God’s creation, along with bringing about a sense of peace. And of course, many creatures frolic in these grounds as well.
Just yesterday someone mentioned to me how they watched the baby ducks in the courtyard ten years ago with their mother when they were here, and how special, playful, and joyful it was to see new life created as her mother was transitioning on.
We are in the Season of Creation, which is “the annual Christian celebration to listen and respond together to the cry of Creation: the ecumenical family around the world unites to pray and protect our common home” (SeasonofCreation.org). As a part of a Felician-sponsored ministry, we are called to care for the earth as well.
I encourage you to find a way that is meaningful to you, to be a part of nature. Breathe it in and pause and be thankful. Then dedicate one small gesture to taking better care of the earth. As fellow Volunteer Coordinator Denise Welsh has taught me, “Action is feet on our prayers.”
The following prayer is an adapted version of the “Pledge of Commitment, To Protect and Heal God’s Creation.”
We have come to help protect God’s creation.
We have come to commit ourselves anew to one another and to heal injustice and poverty.
We have come to stand together against all threats to life.
We have come to discover some new beauty every day in God’s creation: the sunrise and sunset, birds, flowers and trees, rainbows in the sky, the stars, the many forms of life in the forest.
We have come to listen to the “music of the universe”- water flowing over rocks, the wind, trees bending in the wind, raindrops pattering the roof.
We will remember always that God speaks to us through the beauty of his creation, and we will try our best to answer God’s call to reverence all that he has created.
