Origin Story #8 of 21:

Be fruitful and multiply,

and fill the earth and subdue it;

and have dominion over… every living thing. (Gn 1:28)

We are spending a few days with the Bilinskis in their new home at Lake Wildwood. It’s beautiful. They did a wonderful job situating their home in such a way that the wonders of God’s wild creation are all about. As I write, I look out at the sun rising above the forested trees. What a view. What a wonder. What a delightful morning.

The very existence of Lake Wildwood has to do with, as our origin story goes, subduing nature and exercises dominion over it. Boise Cascade developed the property in the 1960s damming up a couple of creeks to form the lake, and around the lake they developed over 2,000 lots for folks like the Bilinskis to purchase and build. A half-century ago, humans brought their own will to bear on this forested valley in the Sierra Foothills, making of it something they had imagined, discussed and planned. With big machinery, science and technology; humans made a lake where there was no lake. Like God, out of our own imagination, we make things.

We aren’t altogether comfortable with this. Should humans have such power over nature? Is this “speciesism”? Would nature be better off if God had stuck to a five day work week? But God decides creation needs sixth-day creatures like us to manage things. It’s our responsibility. God doesn’t tell us how we are to manage things. There are no “how-tos”. We are created with the intelligence to figure out what needs to be done. Our power to subdue and rule is given to us for purposes of preserving order and life in God’s good creation. God has granted his blessing upon all life—even the sea monsters and those creeping things. Our task, with imagination, intelligence and language, is to see to it that “all creatures” flourish on God’s beautiful green earth.

Jim just pointed out a buck following a doe. It’s mating season he tells me. There’s a heavy human footprint about Lake Wildwood. Yet they see to it that nature flourishes. Creation’s robust fecundity on display.