Psalm 8
1 O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You
have set your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark
because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the
stars that you have established;
4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you
care for them?
5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with
glory and honor.
6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have
put all things under their feet,
7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the
paths of the seas.
9 O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
This Psalm expresses the author’s awe that in the midst of the vast
creation, God notices and cares for us (“what are human beings that you
are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?”). How does it feel to
know that you are noticed by God today?
And then verses 6-8 remind us of our call to notice and have “dominion
over” (which means a responsibility to care for) all of God’s works in our
midst. I love the following poem by Mary Oliver about noticing even the
moths in mid-May. And I wonder what creation-care would look like if we all
worked harder at noticing, just as God does with us. What are you taking
notice of today in God's creation?
The Moths by Mary Oliver
There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know
what kind, that glimmers
by mid-May
in the forest, just
as the pink mocassin flowers
are rising.
If you notice anything,
it leads you to notice
more
and more.
And anyway
I was so full of energy.
I was always running around, looking
at this and that.
If I stopped
the pain
was unbearable.
If I stopped and thought, maybe
the world
can’t be saved,
the pain
was unbearable.
Finally, I noticed enough.
All around me in the forest
the white moths floated.
How long do they live, fluttering
in and out of the shadows?
You aren’t much, I said
one day to my reflection
in a green pond,
and grinned.
The wings of the moths catch the sunlight
and burn
so brightly.
At night, sometimes,
they slip between the pink lobes
of the moccasin flowers and lie there until dawn,
motionless
in those dark halls of honey.