In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. (Psalm 94:4-5)
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| Sunset on Vermont's Long Trail |
On Sunday in my 3:16 class, we got on a tangent about how God is reflected in the beauty and power of nature. (Yes, that's a worthy subject in itself, but for us yesterday it was a tangent.) (I may or may not have been the one who led us down that tangent.)
Anyway, I think a lot of us are able to take the beauty of nature for granted. Here in the Augusta area, we have countless greenway-like trails nearby--and this is nothing compared to where I used to live in the mountains of western North Carolina. Even if you don't live in a beautiful part of the world, chances are you've been to the mountains or the beach or the lake, and you've seen a stunning sunset, or you've marveled at a cool tree, rock, or insect. And you've likely cuddled with a pet, or eaten a fresh-picked fruit or vegetable.
These are all instances of nature. These are all things that aren't man-made. These are all things that God made, things that reflect, in some way, our Creator.
And then I thought about inner-city kids: children who grow up seeing nothing but concrete, who don't know what it is to eat a fresh tomato, who have never seen the sun set over the mountain peaks or an ocean view.
Yes, there is the tragedy of "nature deficit disorder." But there is also the tragedy of not being able to see God reflected in this great and powerful world of nature. What does it do to faith, or to the capacity to have faith, when your world is made of concrete walls?
I guess people can see things online. But seeing something online and experiencing the reality of them are two different things. Watching a YouTube video on the sky might be interesting, but there's no substitute for that feeling of being outdoors, in a place with low light pollution, gazing up at millions of stars.
That reminds me of a Walt Whitman poem, and I'm short on time, so I'll end with it:
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
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