Lake Atitlán: The Book Of Job

One of the world’s most beautiful lakes is slowly deteriorating right before our eyes, yet hardly anything is being done. In rural Guatemala, landfills are almost full, so locals burn their trash to get rid of it, and what they do not burn they just leave outside their homes. This leads to many contaminants and pollutants filtering into surrounding lakes. This causes severe damage to the lakes and to everything that depend on those lakes. One of those lakes, Lake Atitlán, was once described as one of the most beautiful lakes in the western hemisphere. However, continuous mismanagement of waste disposal has led to a slew of problems for the area. These problems range from diseases, a growth in toxic algae, and a decline in tourism, the …show more content…
It is still a gorgeous lake, however if it is not cared for, it will continue to lose its splendor. Wonder must first be preceded by humility; one cannot wonder at what one is too prideful to even notice. This idea of humility before the glory of creation is an important feature of the book of Job. In this book, Job laments his suffering and accuses God of being unjust. As a result, God challenges Job to take a broader view of the world. God lays out the immensity of creation and his perfect design before Job. Upon seeing the distinctiveness of God’s creation, all things made separate with their own relationship to God, Job is brought to utter humility before the glory of creation. Similarly, all people are called to this level of humility before the creation of God, and once we have this humility, we may wonder as well. Nancy Rourke describes wonder as a moral virtue because she believes that is it something that we can practice attaining. She approaches wonder as an attitude: “study a thing carefully, and you may well come to wonder at it. If it is worth the wonder, then the wonder will appear”. Through observation of the world and approaching creation with a sense of humility, we are able to achieve a sense of wonder that brings us closer to God. In this thinking, natural wonders such as Lake Atitlán must be preserved in order to bring greater glory to God. In that glory comes a …show more content…
Ecosystems are “webs of systems of interaction, of interrelationalities”, and most importantly, “are open systems”. In order to draw theological connections, Rourke describes human beings as ecosystems, and thus systems open both biologically and spiritually. In this model, we are all unique and interconnected at the same time. The spiritual connection is key as “In Catholic tradition, the border between human agency and God’s agency is porous and imprecise”. This wholeness and interconnectedness is crucially important. Catholic tradition takes this interconnectedness to the divine plane with the integration of Eucharist and Spirit. The Holy Spirit is essential to communion with creation because it empowers creation and transfigures it to divine communion in different and unique ways. The Spirit is able to preserve the complete freedom and creativity of creatures, while at the same time being the energy that undergirds all of creation. Moreover, in typical Trinitarian fashion, the Spirit does not work alone, but is incorporated alongside the Eucharist. Odchigue writes: “The Eucharist becomes a sacrament of communion with the whole of creation – indeed, a performance of ecological communion”. Eucharist is divine symbol of love and communion with God, it is a calling of all creation back to the creator. The Eucharist and Spirit are powerful expressions of God’s love