Dedicate Part of your Living Space to Nature

Life revolves around nature. Life grows from the goodness of creation. Urban life can easily disconnect us from the natural world. When we bring nature into our living space, it reconnects us. A slice of creation is like the garden in the center of monastic cloisters.

Our story begins with creation. As it began, God called creation good. Again and again, people meet God in the wilderness. God is in all places, but when we surround ourselves with nature, we reconnect with creation. Something primordial stirs within us when we smell the earth or feel plants, leaves, and life around us. As we move slowly, we can almost sense the nearness of all things. There in the wilderness, generations collapse and all can feel present. Here, under the canopy of creation, many find themselves close to the Creator.

Living in cities often disconnects us from nature within the confines of a world of our own creation. This can be similar to cloistered monastic life within the walls of a monastery. The garden at the heart of a monastery helps the monastics dwelling there stay connected to nature. The movement of monastic life takes place around this garden. These cloistered monastics sleep, pray, eat, and often work within and around their cloister. In the center of the cloister garden is either a fountain or a tree. This is a symbol of the Giver of Life. This symbol reminds them that all of life orbits around God. We are bound to the Creator. This reality invites us to step outside of time to see our lives held within and between the garden from Eden and the coming unending Kingdom of God. Both are the source of life. Life today exists because of what was and what will be.

As Urban Monastics, we do not have a cloister garden to live around and reflect upon. We can emulate this, in part, by bringing nature into our urban homes. Caring for this part of nature connects us to creation as a whole. It is okay to have nature throughout our homes, but let us place nature somewhere we will see and pass often. Let it remind us that God asked us to care for creation. Learn how to keep it alive. Watch how it changes with the seasons. Let this space help us connect with creation in new ways. As we live in cities that have conquered the wildness of creation, remember that we can never conquer the Creator. In cities our lives are often removed from the wildness and dangers of nature. As our plants live and die, reflect on how delicate and fragile living things can be. Every ecosystem lives within an ever adapting balance. It is a balance that every living thing informs and affects. Remember that we are a part of creation. We share creation. We are a part of an ecosystem. Even in the city, life revolves around nature.

• Touch and smell the living and growing nature in your home. Pray that God will use this to help you feel more connected to creation.
• Reflect on how caring for creation in your home connects you to God, who cares for you.
• Meditate on how all life goes through seasons and rhythms.
• In what ways can you engage with the rhythms of nature (and seasons) where you live?
• Meditate on how your life orbits around our Creator just like every plant, creature, rock, planet, and star.
• Celebrate the nature within your home and that the space you share sustains life.
• Contemplate on the expansiveness of creation and time. Ask God to give you a correct sense of your scale and place within creation.
• Grieve the ways we, as humanity, disregard and decimate nature for short term gains.
• Meditate on the closeness you may experience with God in nature, and upon how God is just as close in your home & city.
• Explore if there are ways you can help bring nature back into your neighborhood and city.