A Plan
Sermon on Isaiah 45:18
I refer to God here as He, capital H, because that’s what seems appropriate to me—if you’re gonna call it a him, it has to be a Him to be rendered as holy. That’s why I capitalize Mother Nature, too.
Whose Earth is it? How should its inhabitants act? Does the creator get a little credit and appreciation from us humans? Or, are we secure in our identity of being one of Earth’s several species of great apes?
Holy Bible, King James Version, Isaiah 45:18 says: “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.”
This is interpreted by me as: “The Creator of Earth and the heavens, Who formed Earth, didn’t do it in vain—He planned Earth to be inhabited, and says He is the LORD, nobody else is, dammit!”
Isaiah 45:18 asserts that God planned for some type of inhabitant on Earth. Earth was supposed to be an environment for some type of denizen. Life developed here, and evolved, leading to humans, planned to exist, according to the Bible, in God’s images (male and female—see Genesis, 1:26-7).
No, He didn’t create us in vain. But it’s up to us to prove our mettle and show—who?—Jehovah?—at least, us!—that we appreciate Him, and each other. That’s why we call Him Our Father or Big Daddy. To us, He is not only a lord, but The LORD, as we can experience His results—we live!
In the next chapter of Isaiah, God even talks of bearing in the womb his people and being committed to delivering them (46:3)—indeed, 46:13 says, “I bring near my righteousness; it shall not be far off, and my salvation shall not tarry: and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory.” It seems that He is asking for our faith.
Indeed, Jehovah, in 45:19, expresses concern for His creations, His folks, as follows: “I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the Earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.” This God deserves our loyalty—not only does He make us, he does and says other right things: He proves that He’s a special lord—the one and only LORD.
Jehovah acts like a creator, and He warns us not to question Him in 45: 9-10: “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! …Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands? Woe unto him that saith unto his father, What begettest thou? or to the woman, What hast thou brought forth?”
In the meantime, we can work/play with our neighbors, and the other species here. Let’s start with “earth,” the word which means land where we make our homes. Capitalized, it becomes the proper name of our own third rock from the Sun, just as Jehovah is our LORD’s name.
We can gain direction by examining this title of our globe. The word “planet” is the noun we now use to describe our physical sphere composed of lands and waters, inhabitants and phenomena. But this actually works poorly for some of our fellow Earthlings, I’m guessing. They don’t like “-net”! Animals who make their homes in water, most likely, do not want their home to be referred to in a word partially composed of a human tool used to harvest and destroy them. Neither do the bugs, I’ll bet; there are a lot of aquatic animals and insects that can be caught in nets by us people! From Nature’s point of view, the orb’s been titled with a “-net” for too long! I mean, this stuff goes into our consciousness!
There is an alternative: “-nit,” as in “plannit.” We humans are squeamish about this name for parasitic insect eggs in the hair. But Mother Nature loves to see Her apes grooming each other to remove nits; they feel closer and this is quite fine. The use of two Ns encourages the speaker to avoid saying what sounds like “net,” while remaining true enough to the original word, planet. So we can change the spelling of our home to include an animal reference, and a positive image, the reference to happy behavior of our great ape friends and relatives.
What about the other part of the word—“plan-”? This syllable suggests the Biblical passage we are talking about—God in Isaiah asserting His plan to have Earth inhabited, and this making Him The LORD! Earth’s people could use a little planning to act better, in concert, these days, as well.
Also, looking at the last two letters of the “planet” alternative I am suggesting, we can see something familiar to people—the moniker “information technology” or IT. Not only does this remedy the focus on yucky bugs that “plannit” suggests, it humanizes the word: IT is a distinctly human invention, one that connects people the world around, these days. Information technology has been with us for years, but no other animal has developed the computer and internet, which have made global communication—suitable for the salvation of the whole Earth?—a possibility. Controlling global warming, for example, might be doable, if our precognitive capacity could be developed. (I know about this because my family has in it a neuroscientist researcher who’s written about these abilities.) Perhaps utilizing digital apps to train us in using our full mental skills would work for this purpose. Or, we might want to sit around and blame God, instead of developing ourselves to the fullest capacity possible that He has formed in us, while we drown and assert that we are not Noah.
While we’re at it, we can also deny responsibility for our fury at the challenges of life on our sphere—anger we turn inward, madness that kills our bodies. This instead of us living forever, as promised in the Bible (see Revelation 21:4).
I suggest that we modify the spelling of our home sphere to “plannit,” a word containing the feminine name “ann.” Ann was, to return to the Bible, the name of the mother of Mary, Jesus’ human parent.
Furthermore, the final letter of our word can be a reference to the wooden cross that Jesus died on, as a “T.” The ultimate sacrifice—death exposed on a structure of wood—was shared by the many African Americans hung from trees in the racist history of the USA. In another English-speaking nation, Scotland, my ancestor, George Wishart, Protestant martyr, was burned alive, most likely by wood-fueled fire. Our family motto is “Mercy Is My Desire!”
To take the bull by the horns, the name of our dear home, Earth, can be expressed as our “Plannit.” The use of a capitalization to write the proper name Earth should be extended to describe its noun. Plannit Earth can never be far from godliness or global intimacy: Mother Nature meets God the Father.
Let us fuel ourselves with compassion, collaboration, and cooperation and let the trees alone: we need them to breathe from! Let the new English name of our home sphere reflect the others who share it, and the glory that we have created here, for every tongue—including those of other species; even the plants, such a big part of our system, which are run by both feminine and masculine powers. As Pope Francis quotes, “‘Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with colored flowers and herbs,’” as St. Francis of Assisi wrote in Canticle of the Creatures (first page in On Care for Our Common Home, Laudato Si’, Encyclical Letter, 2015, Washington, DC, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops).
May peace and mercy flourish in endless tomorrows for all!
~C. Jennifer Walbridge, December 12, 2023, Chicago, IL, USA