God and Nature

I like lists. They are nice and orderly. They make things easy to remember, for the most part. And it summarizes the learning process for you. I read a book, unfortunately I don’t remember the name of it or what it’s even about. But it had a list of different ways to appreciate God. One was through prayer, through charitable acts, through serving the Church, through art, through writing and so on. But the one that struck me was through nature. Some people are convicted of the existence of God through Nature.

Paul saw this too when he wrote in the letter to Romans, “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Ro 1:20) Whenever I go hiking and the road is pretty tough, I focus mainly on putting one foot in front of the other, I work on my breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, I sing little song fragments in my head… I do anything to keep my mind off the agony and pain that my legs are screaming at me. But when I reach a spot to relax, or when someone else thankfully cries, “Stop”, I have time to raise my head and look around. And every time, every time, I do, well, maybe 8 out of 10 times, I am struck by the wonder of nature. I see the way the sunlight filters through the trees, casting strange shapes on the ground. Or I can see the mountains far off in the distance, boldly saying to me, “I’ve been here a thousand years, I’m going to be here another thousand! Beat that, puny human!” Of course, there are times I stop near a power line or a latrine, and well, let’s say nature’s wonder is greatly reduced, but never obliterated.

Going up to Half-Dome was a very hard journey for me. I was so unprepared by all the walking, both mentally and physically. But when my spirit was struggling with the weight of my body and the dirt and bugs and don’t forget those blisters!, all I had to do was look up and see the hand of God wrought throughout nature. And my spirit is uplifted. The same God who thought of everything, how plants use our waste to create life for us, how annoying insects do their insect-thing, and even how to hold us here on Earth so we don’t spin off into space, this God took time away to create us, a little model replica of himself. It truly inspires me every time.

When I was young and I went camping, I hated it. I always thought to myself, I’m giving up Saturday Morning Cartoons for this? Now, I yearn to go out to Nature, and commune with God. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to sit on a large ant-less rock under the shade of a Evergreen tree in the middle of a forest with no one around, and open up the Word and just read a couple of Psalms or two, particularly about the wonder of God? And it would be even more relaxing if you do all that while listening to the music from your mp3 player and with your cell-phone alarm set to 12:00p so you won’t be late for lunch you bought from McDonalds on the way up here. Ahhhh, nature!