Claim. When restoring the hometown, the returning member must first love nature — mountains, rivers, trees — and only then love the people, because Adam and Eve failed first to love creation before failing in love of persons.
Elaboration. SMM gives the ordering explicitly: “You have to know how to love nature and to love people. You have to do this again. This is restoration. You should love all creation because Adam and Eve were not able to. You should return to your hometown and love nature. Love everything there from the grass to the mountains, rivers, and trees. When you finish, love the people next. If you have attained the position of being able to love the mountains, rivers, trees, and animals, then love people on that foundation. The people are to be loved after all things have been restored” (CSG 13.5 §4, 175-31, 1988.4.6). The ordering inverts ordinary outreach priority (people-first), and grounds it in the principle of creation: dominion-of-love runs from creation through humanity, so restoration must travel the same path. The pastoral implication is a “ladder of love” — the returning member greets the grandfather trees and river-pebbles before they greet the village elders, treating affection for creation as a precondition for moral standing within the human tribe. SMM also extends the rule downward to social class: “love the most miserable people” first.
See also. principle-of-creation, restoration