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Plants are a gift from God. Most of us aren’t accustomed to thinking of them that way. But it’s there in Genesis. God creates plants of various kinds and calls them good. After creating animals and other creatures with the breath of life in them, God offers plants as a gift to sustain us.

We all know the benefits of eating our vegetables. Yet, being food is not the only way plants nourish us. Recently, I attended a conference on “Living Well During Climate Change” at the University of Chicago Divinity School. I heard a presentation on the connections between our environment and neuroscience – there are benefits to our well-being and healing when we connect with plants, like living in an area with more tree canopy or visiting parks more often.

Plants offer us serenity, beauty, and sustenance. We can ignore them if we wish, passing them by without looking up at the tree canopy or gazing down at the flowers in bloom. They won’t demand our attention. Yet when we do look to them, we may find them to be an expression of God’s love and care from their place in God’s creation.

This message is excerpted from the faith reflection “Genesis 1: 11-13, 29-30,” by Celeste Kennel-Shank in the June 2025 Café online magazine.