Quotes on the Integrity of Creation
As part of the Oblate Ecological Initiative, Rev. Darrell Rupiper, OMI would visit parishes to spread the Good News of the importance of respecting God’s creation. As part of his ministry, he provided inspirational quotes regarding the integrity of creation. (Quotes without credits were written by Fr. Rupiper).
- “Be the change you want to see in the world.” – Gandhi
- We must extend our circle of community to include all that lives. Can we ever reach the point where our sensitivities to the loss of a species will be felt as the loss of a family member? “When you realize that you have enough, then you are truly rich.” – Tao te Ch’ing
- “There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less. – GK Chesterton
- “The desire for continued accumulation is a flawed path to satisfaction.” – Peter Sawtell
- “Every being has its own interior, its self, its mystery, its numinous aspect. To deprive any being of this sacred quality is to disrupt the total order of the universe. Reverence will be total or it will not be at all. The universe does not come to us in pieces any more than a human individual stands before us with some part of his/her being.” – Thomas Berry
- “Woven into our lives is the very fire from the stars and the genes from the sea creatures, and everyone, utterly everyone, is kin in the radiant tapestry of being. This relationship is not external or extrinsic to our identity but wells up as the defining truth from our deepest being.” – Theologian Elizabeth Johnson
- “We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise.” Preamble to Earth Charter
- “Wonder and awe lead to reverence and reverence leads to responsibility. Reverence for and responsibility to the natural world are intimately connected to each other and to authentic religious experience.” – Heather Eaton
- “Anytime, day or night, at home or in the street, wherever we are, we are bathed in God.” – Dom Helder Camara, Bishop of Recife Brazil
- “Every tradition has an awareness of the natural world as a primary place of revelation and religious experience, a place of beauty, elegance and inspiration.” – Heather Eaton
- “Those of us who contemplate the world soon come to have a great sense of wonder. The perfection of the stars, the beauty of the mountains and streams, the invigorating quality of clean ocean air fill us with feelings of celebration and reverence. We must be responsible and at the same time express the wonder of all that we know as humans.” – A Taoist
- “Contemporary society has become dry, not for lack of wonders but for lack of wonder.” – GK Chesterton
- “This we know, the Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth. We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web we do to ourselves.” Chief Seattle
