Reflection on Creation Myth Assignment - Michael Evans

We were assigned a paper in which we were to discuss a particular group of people’s creation myth, or the way they believed the world to be formed, as well as its relationship with ecology and nature. I chose to study and write about the Iroquois creation myth in which a Sky Woman was forced through a whole in the skies and into a vast body of water, at which point the wildlife used mud on a turtle’s back to create a land mass for her to live on. As I read this myth I noted the ecological links like the wildlife, the sky, the mud, etc. and I realized how important much of nature is to our religion and way of life as well. Until writing this paper I had not really thought about the role of nature in religion. If we look, however, to the bread and wine we might eat and drink at church to represent the blood and body of Christ, our expulsion from Eden, and the fact that God created the Earth on which we live, we realize that nature has everything to do with our religion.
This caused a branch off on which I thought about how we took all of these gifts for granted. We pollute our environment, cut down trees, and create smog, all things that are harming our ecosystems and the Earth as a whole. Now, consider that God gave us this Earth as a gift, a place on which to live. Is polluting that gift, spoiling it like we are doing, not a slap to God’s face? Are our actions not relentless insults to him? We were already exiled from Eden for disobeying God’s laws on nature, and yet we continue down that road. Perhaps this is due to our expulsion and the realization that we can’t get back to Eden so we might as well swing to the opposite pole. Regardless, though, we are biting the hand that feeds us. We should start treating nature more like the treasured gift it is.