Land: As Glory of God
For a human person, land is very
important and essential. It gives him an identity, a sense of belongingness,
security and self-worth. For a human person to be fully a human person he
should be in possession of a piece of land. So for self-identity and
self-expression depends on this possession. However, hardly people who own at
least a small piece of land ever understand or try to understand the immense
value it has and also the pain of those who do not have it. The pain of the
landlessness can only be understood by being landless. Land thus plays very
important role in our life.
When I look at land which we
collectively use for many of the things like rivers, mountains, plains which
co-exist in it, I get into tremendous feelings. A feeling of wonder,
admiration, gratefulness and a sense of submission envelops me. Any piece of
land is a microcosm of the earth. Sacredness of land comes from its necessity
and meaningfulness that it gives in our life. Natural beauty always touches the
bottom of my heart. Seasons are really the colour of our life. Newness of life
is the effect of season on land. Land provides us with everything we need to
have in our life.
The sacredness of land forces me
to look at land with a pantheistic view. The land with all it has points to the
immanence of God in our midst. If we look at the ancient tribal religions and
that of the west and Middle East, we see that land played a vital role in the
moulding of their history. This is very much evident from the story of the
event of exodus in the Bible. “The Promised Land” was the goal of the
Israelites. We see that God calls everybody to Himself and we see in the First
Testament God did this by guiding them to a new Promised Land. Isn’t there a flavour
of pantheism, a sense of God being immanent in the “Promised Land?” Don’t we
see that people who were martyred (like Fr A T Thomas) for land were really
martyrs for God Himself?
According to Genesis, we are
made owners of land in order to take care of this God’s priceless creation (Gen
2:15). We can use them with at most care and responsibility. But today when we
look at the way the nature in general and land in particular we see that there
is an abuse of land causing destruction and degradation which soon will back
fire on us. We all should have a deep sense of “Earth being our home, our only
home”. As far as I see, greed and selfishness are the major causes of
destruction of land and its sacredness.
I am a nature lover and I do
love trees a lot. This is something that will look very silly and mundane.
During my study at St Xavier’s College, Palayamkottai, I was staying in the
Britto block of the hostel. I stayed on the first floor at one end of the
corridor. Whenever I needed a break from my hectic study and working with the computer,
I used to come out of my room and look at the tall tree that was just beside my
room. It was a tall tree with big leaves and plenty of branches. It was home to
many squirrels, birds and also some insects. I used to literally communicate
with this tree and had lot of mental and even verbal conversations. I used to
love that tree just for being a tree and in return I used to get refreshed and
rejuvenated in my mind and heart and then I would resume my studies.
In this my experience with the
tree, I should say that the tree was in a way for me to experience God and His
love. It was a medium of God’s care for me and I experienced God’s comfort
through that tree.
Adivasi view of land points to the fact that land is the backbone
of his existence. For the adivasis
land is not simply a factor of production as for other people, but a source of
spirituality as well. Land is sacred to them because it is a gift from God to
their ancestors. Land belongs to the ancestors and the present generation is
mere custodians. Its ownership belongs to the community, not the individuals; the
community of tribe includes not only the living members but also the ancestors
and future generations. We have in all the adivasi
traditions of Chotanagpur the creation myth, clearly explaining how Sing Bonga created the land from sea. He
created land primarily for the well being of the human beings. According to Fr
Stan Lourdusway, you take away the land from an adivasi; you take away everything from him. It just shows that for him
land is the basic foundation of his life, without which he cannot think of his
survival. But today the truth is that land is being grabbed in the name of
developmental projects. In the process of which the adivasis are stripped off of their identity and survival.
Yahweh says “the land is
mine”(Lev 25:23). In the Sp Ex Ignatius speaks of contemplation to attain love
leading us to find God in everything. So eco-spirituality and love for the
creation of God is a pro-life attitude which originates from our love for God
and love for others. Hence, the invitation for us today is that we really
understand our dependence on land and modify our attitude towards our land.
This will really make a new heaven on the earth itself.
