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	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}david-warners(1).jpg" style="width: 125px; height: 125px; float: right;" /><em>On January 31st, Au Sable will host a &#39;Missionary Earthkeeping&#39; conference to explore the connections with creation care and missions and development work. In connection with the conference, we are publishing the first of four posts by Dr. David Warners, Professor of Biology at Calvin College, on a framework for thinking about Christian environmental stewardship and its relationship to development. In Part 1, Warners explored&nbsp;<a href="http://ausable.org/news_and_resources/blog/the_five_themes_of_stewardship_by_david_warners#.UQbX2yf7KuI">five themes of Christian environmental stewardship</a>. In Part 2, Warners explores <a href="http://ausable.org/news_and_resources/blog/the_five_principles_of_environmental_stewardship#.UQgerCf7KuI">five principles that should guide our role as stewards</a> of God&#39;s creation. In Part 3, he discusses how creation fits within the biblical vision of shalom.</em></p>
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	The Old Testament concept of &lsquo;shalom&rsquo; is a rich and expansive notion. &nbsp;In most English translations this term is typically and somewhat regretfully translated as &lsquo;peace&rsquo;. &nbsp;All translations, by their very nature, are limited interpretations. &nbsp;Yet, some words have rich meanings that are particularly difficult to justly render in a different language. &nbsp;Swahili speakers have a wonderful phrase, &lsquo;pole sana&rsquo;, whose best English equivalent is probably, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m sorry&rsquo;. &nbsp;Yet &lsquo;pole sana&rsquo; carries with it not only a sense of regret, but also of empathy, of desire that things could be different, of association &ndash; so much more than the words, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m sorry&rsquo; can convey. &nbsp;It is similarly difficult to find an English word that encompasses the full meaning of shalom. &nbsp;Instead, many words are needed, as in this description by David Wise (in The Environment and the Christian):</p>
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	<em>Shalom is God&rsquo;s dream and promise for the fulfillment of his creation . . . the knitting together of all the brokenness in the cosmos, in the relations between man and man, a man and himself, man and nature, within nature, and between man-nature and God.</em></p>
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	We might summarize this concept by saying that shalom is the condition when all the elements of creation are interacting in the way God intends them to interact. &nbsp;Shalom happens when we human beings treat each other with the proper dignity we all deserve, it happens when we think neither too highly nor too lowly of ourselves; it happens when we exhibit a balanced stewardship of the creation; when creation is allowed to exist as it was created to exist; and it happens when all of creation (humans included) is thriving and in that thriving, is praising God. &nbsp;</p>
