Nature is necessary. It’s necessarily natural. It’s expressive. Shouting thunder, crying clouds. Wind that whispers, waves that lull, trees that cradle. Beams of bliss, caws of laughter, blades of sensitivity, shades of vibrancy. It’s like us, in a way.
We are physical, we feel, and sometimes our surroundings help. They’re tangible and dependable, and therefore reasonable, authenticating our existence. Our relationships with the world around us begin at the roots, from where we come. I know I did not start it all. My words are small. Our humanly subsistence, and first of all existence, is not of our own. The pulse and the pulsating muscles and the mind and the heart with a mind of its own and the tingling sensational flesh—I did not make it. I was made. “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them… God saw all that He had made and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:27, 31a).
In the beginning, God spoke. Whether sound or statement, an expression went forth, expanding and stretching the heavens into existence. “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1). It’s a declaration of dependence, of need for truth and true love. Nature is necessarily expressive, a poignant point to an ethereal finger. The substance of creation is substantial. It subsists, as do we, because of a Sustainer.
In the beginning, all was perfect and the sound was harmonious; creature, creation, and Creator in harmony. It was good, very good.
When I crinkle up the paper like a crunchy fallen leaf, I do not feel very good. When I glimpse at a deer, dead, lanced by a humming car, I cringe. When I infect the water with my waste and debris and a gummy surface reflects itself along the bank, I realize that I’m sick. It was my choice, my indifference, my independence, my rebellion. An apple, fallen from its tree, of its own accord. And worms infested the world, digging us holes deeper and deeper into the rot that we wreak, away from the sunlight.
But again, God spoke. “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). And the Son shone and “in Him was the life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:4-5). At the edge of the lake, fiery fall colors reflected, and the Light caught my eye. Just off the path, sitting beneath a tree, its long sinewy arms wrapping around me, I glanced across to the other side and saw the green underbrush rising up from the shoreline, tall trees tilting over them, and a path, worn with love by those who had traveled it before me. A slightly rusted slide rested in the middle of the lake and I could imagine the chattering children sliding and then splashing, trilling the air with giggles, making the lake grin. No doubt the scenery had changed over time, but in this case man had not devastated the landscape, rather preserving its essence for the plants and beings that it would house in the future. I saw a glimpse of hope for harmony between creature, creation, and Creator once again. The Word saved me, and salvaged my view of the world. And as I trusted, I asked, and the tree lifted my dirt-covered apple and reconnected it to the branch, restoring it, redeeming it. And the lake reflected the world, and I saw His glory.
I felt small, like you do when you lie on the ground, pitch black surrounding you, and you gaze at the glimmering stars. How could someone count them all? Give it a try. “Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, the One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing” (Isaiah 40:26). The darkness did not overcome the light.
Let there be light! What a gift, the heavens and the earth. Not just a souvenir but an endowment. Dominance and submission equalize. The world came first, but people are principal. Yet He cares and so we must tenderly care for His garden. In Maryland, my dad became a gardener. He planted seeds in March, and watched the buds blossom and fruit ripen in the summer months. First minute emerging sprouts and then flourishing flora dappled with red, yellow, green, orange. God produced the fruit but Dad nurtured it, helping it to actually take root. He could have killed the plants if he wanted, but what good would that do? And so we picked the peppers and zucchini and cantaloupe and tomatoes and mint. And in the following spring, He planted more, restoring the exposed ground, making it decent again.
I saw this restoration of relationship with the land in a tiny town on the coast of Ecuador. They named it after the river, Río Muchacho, which isolated the community from the rest of the world, it seemed. An impoverished area yet overflowing with fertility. Children danced and sang songs in the school where they learned the delight of reading and the ecstasy of cultivating both their minds and the ground on which they stood. The parents shared what they had, working together in the fields, unafraid of the nonexistent toxins. They used the materials around them, shunning plastic and embracing shells of the nuts, sheaths of the fruit, and stems of the trees, which would later decay and regenerate, cycling forever. The sun was their comrade, shining in their lives and on the work of their hands, giving them energy. This sight enlivened me and sparked vision in my heart. The soil proved to be rich, and so became their lives; they were richly blessed.
I too am so blessed. I have hiked in the Andes Mountains, seen the sunrise over the Sierras, bathed in the moonlight lapping against the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, skied the Continental Divide, swum with fish in their Pacific coral habitat, flown a kite through the meadow that lies across from my home in the Rocky Mountains, a meadow in the mountains, set aside to simply be. There should be more places like that, where nature’s law reigns and humans obey.
Our response to the blessings around us should not be a curse, but adoration to the One who blesses. Our nurturing of nature is our act of worship. The ethics of the environment are God-centric, and so mine are too. Nature is so necessary. We need it. Us and our world, we’re the same, in a way. Created for the same purpose, just different roles. We try to prove ourselves to others, but it’s God who proves Himself through us. It’s for His glory. So we rest on the design of the Designer, and the Sustainer uses us to sustain our environment. We need sustainability, I cry. Just say the word, and maybe we’ll try.
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