Loving the Land

19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now (Romans 8:19-22, English Standard Version).

Willa Cather (1873-1947) set the plot and characters of O Pioneers! (1913) in the late 1800s on the vast challenging prairie of frontier Nebraska. As a young child, Alexandra Bergson had been brought to that land from Sweden by her parents. Her father died when she was only a young adult and he left his farm in her hands.

Respecting the Integrity of the Land

The parents of Willa Cather (1873-1947) moved their family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883. Cather would live in that state until she graduated from the university in Lincoln sixteen years later.

Cather published O Pioneers! in 1913. It opens in 1883 and describes the lives of European homesteaders around the fictional town of Hanover. Plot and characters center on Alexandra Bergson who immigrated with her father John and family from Sweden to the area in 1862.

The Land Has Its Own Integrity

Willa Cather (1873-1947) featured sturdy good characters in at least three of her books: Alexandra Bergson in O Pioneers! (1913), Ántonia Shimerda in My Ántonia (1918), and Jean Marie Latour and Joseph Vaillant in Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927).

O Pioneers! opens on a winter’s day, 1883, in a fictional town on the Nebraskan prairie. Fifteen-year-old Carl Linstrum is giving a ride in his wagon to Alexandra Bergson, four years his senior, and her little brother Emil as they return to their adjacent farms. The Linstrums and Bergsons emigrated from Sweden years earlier to attempt a new life on the American frontier.

Getting Much Closer to the Land

Today Jesus Christ is calling us Christians to witness more clearly to him by developing a way of living which respects the integrity of God’s good creation. We respect that integrity (as opposed to violating it) when we live within (as opposed to trespass) the vital limits of creation.

     
I introduced and biblically grounded this invitation in a series of essays in 2014: “Creation as Perfect Context through Limits (Genesis 1)” (September 30), “Respecting Vital Limits: Other Species and Their Habitats” (October 1), “First Step away from Electricity: Abandoning the Gods for Jesus” (October 2), “Vital Limit: Carrying Capacity” (October 4), and “Vital Limit: Solar Income” (October 6).