If Jesus were to celebrate Earth Day, he would definitely plant a few trees.

Afterward, he would sit quietly among those trees, his bare feet in the dirt, and listen.

As followers of Christ, we Christians generally neglect and even violate this quieter aspect of our faith, our connection to Creation beyond the human community.

In our world, we tend to focus on the spiritual needs of an “independent” humanity while ignoring the human-induced crises of the earth that disrespect the gift of Creation. This dangerous ignorance has for centuries resulted in the devastation, destruction and abuse of nature, as well as a growing divergence between Christians and the earth. Christianity has become severely disconnected from the real essence of humanity and even from its own principles.

The core of Christianity has been, from the beginning, embodied by people existing together as a system, as a community cohabiting a finite planet with limited resources. The common belief that we are separate from “nature” perpetuates our apathetic attitudes and leads us to believe that we are morally above the ecological and unethically un-Christian consequences of our uninformed decisions – or rather, our uninformed exercises in free will.

The Holy Spirit gives us the gift of fear of the Lord, called wonder and awe, which compels us far beyond a detached appreciation of the mere physical beauty of a soul less “landscape” to a childlike sense of connection, communion and humility. Overwhelmed with gratitude for the vastness and purity of this gift of God manifested, we can begin to understand the significance of Earth Day to Christians.

“Manifested” remains a historically significant term to many environmentally conscious spiritual movements because it signifies a divine presence on earth, just as God is manifested in humans.

Earth Day is about a spiritual reconnection to the earth, to God’s marvelous gift of himself in Creation. It means reincorporating the belief held by our polytheistic brothers and sisters of “genus loci,” or the presence of the Spirit in everything, be it tree, bird, fish or human. This is not anti-Christian or heretical, but fundamentally and purely God-centered and at the core and roots of Christianity.

Earth Day celebrates seeing the Spirit in every minuscule aspect of Creation, and thus respecting and protecting Creation’s independent and equally divine right to be. Our modern interpretation of the story of Genesis seems to argue that because we are human our “superiority” inherently mandates a constant and supreme right to exist while allowing us to selectively destroy and deny that same right to other organisms, both born and unborn.

In reality, our free will gives us a consciousness unique to the animal kingdom, while our divine right to dominion given to Adam in Genesis overwhelmingly translates into active stewardship.

Urgently, we must begin to view ourselves as stewards. Respect, listen, grow. Sit among the trees and hear God’s voice.

Lynn White, a notable critic of Christianity’s role in the destruction of the environment, recommended in the late 1960s that we as Christians adopt St. Francis of Assisi as our patron and role model. St. Francis was more than just the flowery, mild-mannered children’s saint so often depicted. He was a bold, fun-loving man who preached about “Brother Sun” and “Sister Mother Earth” – and held a congregation under the open sky among the animals.

Eight hundred years later, during a time of ecological emergency, the attitude of St. Francis still serves as a guide for appropriate Christian response.

Francis knew that although our free will sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, it does not empower us to overexploit the earth and its creatures. Our free will to praise the Creator gives us the ability to become stewards of the Spirit on earth. Free will allows us to rise above our animal instinct for constantly consuming so that only the fittest may survive – and it gives us the capacity to choose to care for all of our fellow creatures, and for our single delicate habitat.

Earth Day is not solely about planting trees or about riding our bikes to work, but about understanding, regardless of our personal spiritual inclinations, how to become truly aware and in awe of our own individual openness to the Spirit, the ever-present manifestation of God in nature, as well as our innate and undeniable connection to him.

Erica Maltz, a former member of the Maine Catholic Youth Communications Council, is a first-year student at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, where she is majoring in human ecology. She may be reached through bdnreligion@bangordailynews.net. Voices is a weekly commentary on spiritual and religious issues by a panel of Maine columnists.