You, O God, created land, and sea, and sky: small, tiny plants to grace the Earth, giant trees with roots deep in soil and arms reaching into the sky; and animals, from giant, blundering elephants to chattering chipmunks, You, O God, created.
Creator God, we have forgotten. We thought this world was our world, a world exclusively for our use.
You, O God, created an abundance of space: forests to shelter a herd of deer and a pack of wolves;
prairie grasslands to host thundering bison and whistling prairie dogs; bogs for turtles and water snakes; ponds for bull frogs and great blue herons, You, O God, created.
Creator God, we have forgotten. We thought this world was our world, a world to subjugate and redefine.
You, O God, created all kinds of people in a never-ending variety of shapes, sizes, and colours:
people to cultivate the land and tend the earth people to gather in praise on a Sabbath day
people to minister, to support, to love. You, O God, created.
Creator God, we have forgotten We thought these were our lives, lives to spend as we wished.
You, O God, created, and it was good.
Creator God, help us to remember, to cherish, to live with respect and move more lightly upon your good earth. Amen. © 2012 The United Church of Canada/L’Église Unie du Canada. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike Licence. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ca.