Friday, January 11, 2013

a creed

This is the personal creed of Dr. J.W. Grant MacEwan. I put this up on the bulletin board in my office to remind myself to always endeavour to leave things better than I found them. To know every day that my dependence on the land is fundamental. And to help myself not to settle for an ideology that is handed to me; rather to insist upon searching for one.

Dr. MacEwan wrote extensively on matters of conservation and the truly human stories of how Western Canada came to be the way we know it today. He made a massive contribution to the mythology of this region. He believed that we must nurture sustainable relationships with our environment and with each other in order to innovate. Also, he liked horses.

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I believe instinctively in a God for whom I am prepared to search.

I believe it is an offence against the God of Nature for me to accept any hand-me-down, man-defined religion or creed without the test of reason.  I believe no man dead or alive knows more about God
than I can know by searching.

I believe that the God of Nature must be without prejudice, with exactly the same concern for all His children, and that the human invokes no more, no less of fatherly love than the beaver or sparrow.

I believe I am an integral part of the environment and, as a good subject, I must establish an enduring relationship with my surroundings.  My dependence upon the land is fundamental.

I believe destructive waste and greedy exploitation are sins.

I believe the biggest challenge is in being a helper rather than a destroyer of the treasures in Nature's storehouse, a conserver, a husbandman and partner in caring for the Vineyard.

I accept, with apologies to Albert Schweitzer, "a Reverence for Life" and all that is of the Great Spirit's creation.

I believe morality is not complete until the individual holds all of the Great Spirit's creatures in brotherhood and has compassion for all.  A fundamental concept of Good consists of working to preserve all creatures with feeling and the will to live.

I am prepared to stand before my Maker, the Ruler of the entire Universe, with no other plea than that I have tried to leave things in His Vineyard better than I found them.

Dr. J.W. Grant MacEwan, 1969

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