As a kid, I was a wanton killer of non-human creatures [wanton = "lacking reason or provocation"].  I grew up in a town where if a critter had fins, fur, feathers or four or more feet, it was fair game.  I got my first BB-gun when I was about 10—a Daisy Red Ryder at that!  One of my later BB-guns had 110 notches on it before it wore out (the notches indicating the number of birds I had killed with it).  I even continued into adulthood with little regard especially for creatures conveniently labeled as “vermin.”  Often frustrated with an unsuccessful day hunting “game,” I would look for something else to kill: porcupines, chipmunks, red squirrels, or even blue jays (which were actually protected by law).  [See under "Articles" my story "Conversion of the Birdslayer," http://www.wonderofcreation.org/resources/ ]

I realize now that my behavior was at the very least unsportsmanlike.  Perhaps becoming a nature writer and a creation-care advocate was my Creator’s way of compelling me to make amends for my bad deeds!  Isn’t it something how we can justify bad behavior so easily by labeling our targets: vermin, pests, dirty, trash—even game?  And how easily that can be transferred from non-human creatures to people.

I’m a different person now as a grandfather.  I encourage my grandchildren to avoid doing what I did as a kid.  Our oldest granddaughter is a master bug catcher, and not yet having been stung, she boldly captures bees with a jar and lid—even the big carpenter bees.  But I let her know how much I like it when she releases them and doesn’t let them die.  I tell the grandkids this: “God has made each creature with specific work to do—work that is vital to nature’s processes and balance.  We have our work and they have their work.  So unless they are harming you or threatening to harm you, let them do what God made them for.”

In his landmark book Pollution and the Death of Man: The Christian View of Ecology (Tyndale House: 1970, p.76), Francis Schaeffer spoke about the reason for such respect for God’s non-human creatures [He was writing this at the end of the sixties]:

The hippies are right in their desire to be close to nature, even walking in bare feet in order to feel it.  But they have no sufficient philosophy, and so it drifts into pantheism and soon becomes ugly.  But Christians, who should understand the creation principle, have a reason for respecting nature, and when they do, it results in benefits to man.  Let us be clear: it is not just a pragmatic attitude; there is a basis for it.  We treat it with respect because God made it.  When an orthodox, evangelical Christian mistreats or is insensible to nature, at that point he is more wrong than the hippie who has no real basis for his feeling for nature and yet senses that man and nature should have relationship beyond that of spoiler and spoiled.  You may, or may not, want to walk barefoot to feel close to nature, but as a Christian what relationship have you thought of and practiced toward nature as your fellow creature over the last ten years.

The emphasis in that quote was Schaeffer’s—and probably a good emphasis for followers of Christ the Creator today.

See you outdoors!

Dean

Chickadees don’t give a rip about the stock market! That’s just one of many things I love about this wonderful little creature. So instead of sitting inside watching my retirement account fly away, I like to go outside and watch my favorite bird—a creature that owned this country long before Wall Street! They were with the starving Pilgrims their first year in the Plymouth Colony. They were around the campfires at Valley Forge. They were picking seeds amid the din of Gettysburg. They were sometimes handfed by Civilian Conservation Corps workers during the Great Depression. They watched FDR pondering his war decisions at Camp David (then called Shangri-la!). Daily they visit the trees around the lonely crash site of Flight 93. And there they are today in my now leaf-bare Juneberry tree.

I love chickadees because they live life with gusto. They’re small, fragile, and vulnerable—especially to the northern goshawk who loves to visit my birdfeeder every winter, pursuing sparrows and juncos into the shrubs with such vigor that snow cascades down on prowler and prey alike. After the threat has passed, which are the first to arrive back at the feeder? The chickadees—even while feathers are still flying! Their boldness is a wonder—a boldness my oldest son and I experienced at a camp a couple decades ago. Seeing a few of them in a pine tree nearby, I told Greg to pick a few peanut pieces out of his Snickers bar, place them in the palm of his hand, and walk slowly toward a low hanging bough. It was hardly a minute before one of the little birds landed on his hand to grab a treat. I had my camera with me, so I instructed Greg to hold really still so I could capture the event on film. Looking through the eyepiece, I saw one land again and then disappear before I could trip the shutter. But I held the camera still, thinking it would return soon—which it did, but not to my son’s hand: through the camera I saw Greg smiling and pointing toward me. I slowly lifted my head and found the bird perched on my telephoto lens! Neither of us will ever forget the joy of the wonderful feeling a human being has when he is trusted by vulnerable wild creatures.

Here’s my take on chickadees: Threats surround them everywhere. Most other birds outweigh them dramatically. If they had to stop and worry about all the risks and threats, life would be miserable for them; so they seem to say, “Darn the goshawks. Full speed ahead!” They know life is a risk, but that’s not going to stop them from enjoying it. It seems that in their little spirits they have somehow heard these comforting words: “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God” (Luke 12:6).

So as my retirement savings tick daily downward, it’s probably good for me to go outdoors and be preached at by the chickadees.

See you outdoors!

Dean

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.
(Romans 1:20)

I’ve often used this verse and its context in apologetic discussions with folks who were not followers of Christ, but a few years ago I began to concentrate on what Paul’s statement means within a believer’s life.  I considered primarily what Paul said that all people, believer and unbeliever alike, ought to be able to “see” in the natural creation.  The NIV states that we can see God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and His divine nature—in the creation itself.  In studying the word “divine,” I concluded that something divine is superhuman, God-like, supremely good, magnificent, and compels human beings to worship.  Then I asked myself just exactly what is it about the natural world that would demonstrate our Creator’s eternal power and His right to be worshiped. 

Over a number of years, I created this list from my observations of the creation and from interactions with others on backpacking trips and other outdoor retreats.  I don’t believe this list is exhaustive; so I’d love to have our readers drop in brief comments on other aspects of the wild that have shown you God’s eternal power and His right to be the only entity in the cosmos worthy of our worship.

Here’s what I have seen in the natural world:

1.    Mysterious light and matter
       (which still defy human definition and understanding)
2.    Seemingly endless time
        (no clearly apparent beginning or end)
3.    Seemingly endless space 
       (eternality seen in the microcosm and macrocosm)
4.    Astronomical extravagance and magnitude
       (”Billions and billions” -Sagan)
5.    Wonderful life
       (inexplicable in essence and origin-
       and known on earth alone)
6.    Fearsome, but essential, death
       (which is marvelously linked to life)
7.    Profound mystery
       (beyond human understanding)
8.    Abiding orderliness
       (out of seeming chaos)
9.    Regular cycles
       (making the creation mostly predictable)
10.  Sabbath rest
       (the balance of rest with activity)
11.  Revitalizing stillness
       (quieting the human soul)
12.   Unfathomable complexity
       (defying human simplification)
13.   Awesome power
        (far exceeding our own)
14.   Incredibly informed design
       (absolutely beyond human duplication)
15.   Virtually endless variety
       (unbelievable biodiversity)
16.   Amazing adaptability
       (micro-evolutionary change)
17.   Overwhelming beauty
        (thrilling the heart and soul)
18.   Extravagant fruitfulness
       (offering all creatures more than enough)
19.   Limitless sensory stimulation
       (candy for the senses)
20.   Abundant joy (”even the worm can feel 
       contentment” -Schiller)
21.   Fear of people
       (grieving the human soul)
22.   The image of God: mankind  
       (An unbridgeable gap between people and the other
        creatures—people  alone having the capacity for creative
        thinking, abstract reasoning, and symbolic language—and
        having innate morality and the instinct to worship)

Can you add to this list from your own observations?

See you outdoors!

Dean

There’s a sense in which I believe our common evangelical talk about having a personal relationship with the Creator and Sustainer of the universe sometimes makes Him far too small and us too big. We are understandably taken with personal relationships. Most of our time is spent with people or in human settings where everything we are in a relationship with is human or a human artifact: spouses, children, office mates, homes, buildings, cars, phones, iPods, TVs, and so forth. All of these things we can manipulate and manage—and manage them to our own advantage as much as we can. Even the last thing we do at night is manipulate the comfort of our beds and bedrooms in order to get “a good night’s rest”—only to come back to consciousness and start the human relationship thing all over again. Day after day after day with little variation.

That’s why I feel it’s so important to become more intimate with the natural world. While we can manipulate some things there—often negatively—we cannot manage the natural processes: they are under God’s administration. And if we find ourselves uncomfortable with that reality (as probably most of us often are) we really need the wild. We tend to forget that much of our feeling of control is actually an illusion that will fade—especially when we come face to face with our mortality or even threats to our mortality (hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, wildfires, and so forth). We’re neither in control of the natural world nor in the natural world, and that’s why we and our children need to get more in touch with the natural world. We need to experience the wild and get away from human artifacts where we can actually see God in His greatness—not as our pal, but as the Lord of the cosmos.

If the importance I grant the natural world here seems a little radical, do this exercise: read the book of Job. Most of the book is a story about Job and his relationship with his friends. Job has in fact come face to face with his mortality, his children have been tragically killed, and all his money and possessions have become meaningless. And his friends react sort of like people today sitting around in our churches and small groups trying to explain to someone who is suffering how God works and what we are supposed to do to get God to make things all right again—to stop our suffering and perhaps help us recoup our losses. But in the biblical story, God does not make a great benefactor’s appearance, and Job is not relieved of his suffering and loss.

If we were writing the script of this narrative, we’d have God come in on cue, say “amen” to all our wise and helpful advice, and then make things right for Job because he followed his counselors’ formulas for getting what he wanted from God. But that’s not what happened. Instead, God appeared—and rather sternly. God called all their friendly, relational chatter nothing but “words without knowledge.” Then God made clear to Job exactly what it means to understand that both our destiny and our world are in the hands of the Creator and Sustainer of the universe (read chapters 38-42:6). God reviewed for Job not the reason for his suffering, but the evidence that He, God, is beyond our management: In marvelous Hebrew poetry, Job’s Maker highlights the fearful wonders of the creation for the humbled patriarch to be certain that he will never again think he is in control or that his community of friends have God pegged.

If for nothing else, then, we need to experience the natural world to remind us that God is not a friend to be manipulated, but is our Creator: maker of wonders we cannot truly fathom with powers that are beyond our grasp. Simply put, experiencing the wild helps remind us that though He loves and cares for us—Person to person—He is still to be honored as the Lord of the cosmos—of all that is real and significant.

Let’s not forget that the great outdoors is a cathedral—not where nature is worshiped but where we actually join nature “in manifold witness to [His] great mercy and love.” http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/g/i/gisthyf.htm

See you outdoors,

Dean

The day I saw my physician’s assistant a couple weeks ago was an awesome fall day.  While sitting in the examination room, I took the liberty of lifting the blinds to look down into the blazing branches of a sugar maple that had a height exceeding that of the three-floor clinic.  Almost immediately I saw a couple tiny kinglets really busy combing the branches for bugs (could not see the male close-up so don’t know if they were golden-crowned or ruby crowned).  Again I wondered just how much such creatures of God are regaled by the creation’s beauty.

Musing thus, I was almost irritated that the PA didn’t make me wait more than ten minutes!  When she came in, she noted that I was actually using the windows for their real purpose–looking outside.  So we got to talking about the outdoors, and I told her about my new work at RBC as a nature writer and about our aim to help parents and grandparents get the kids outdoors.  Having five kids in her blended family, she commented on how hard it was to get them away from the TV and toys.  “But,” she, said, “I’m the family outdoor Nazi.  When I’m home they go out!”  “Good for you,” I remarked.

I believe it’s a good goal to work at having your kids or grandkids experience the outdoors almost every day of the year.  The weather outside may even be “frightful” but the kids can find it delightful. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these” parents and caregivers from getting their kids outdoors at least once each day!  That doesn’t mean just running them from the house to the car.  It means getting out and deliberately examining what’s happening in the creation.  It’s important to make your children or grandchildren aware of what’s going on in the natural world every day: windy or calm, sunny or cloudy, wet or dry, hot or cold, humid or arid, where the sun and moon are, what the birds are doing, what the natural sounds and scents are.  Be bold, dress the kids appropriately, and go out and experience rain, fog, snow—even blizzard-force winds (dressed for it and close to safety, of course). Sometimes in the winter, I get my warmest gear on and go sit outside in a powerful snowstorm for as long as I can take it.  John Muir did this in a Sierra windstorm—up in a tall tree.  Nearly killed him, but he DID get to feel what it was like to be a Douglas fir in a mountain windstorm

There’s a new item listed on the menu at the top of the home page: “Wonder Kids.” Check it out.  I’ve placed a number of ideas there for things to do with kids outdoors to help them experience the wonder of creation.  Soon we’ll have a comments box there for you to share your own ideas and experiences.  I’d love to have you recommend this feature to the parents and grandparents you know—to help them get the kids outdoors or to share what they do with the WOC community.

See you outdoors!

Dean

I love just about anything scientific: ornithology, zoology, botany, meteorology, astronomy.  When I go outside, I hardly know what to look at: the birds, the clouds, the animals, the trees, or the night sky! Many Christians, however, have a bad attitude about science.  They think that because so many outspoken scientists are atheists, science must somehow lead to disbelief in God.  Not so.  In fact, the Apostle Paul points out that the natural world is itself evidence for the existence of God (Rom 1:21).

I’ve found that three R’s help me keep my biblical focus about the natural world: regard, respect, relationship.

Regard: The Bible tells us that God attends the death of a sparrow. Think of that! If the great Originator of the sparrow also attends its death, how can we care less? Most of the species extinctions mankind has witnessed are the result of our failure to give attention to what God gives His attention to.  Learning to love what the Creator loves can only increase the intensity of our spiritual experiences.  Think of all the biblical stories where people met God in the wilderness.  Could it be that we often miss the voice of God because we are regarding only human entertainments and artifacts?

Respect: George MacDonald, 19^th century Christian author whose writing inspired C. S. Lewis, had a reverent respect for the natural world.  He wrote, “The flowers are joyous, inarticulate children, come with vague messages from the Father of all.  If I confess that what they say to me sometimes makes me weep, how can I call my feeling for them anything but love?”
The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made (Psalm 145:9).

Relationship: Evangelical theologian John Stott is an avid birder who motivated the founder of A Rocha, a Christian nature conservancy.  He writes, “Christian people should surely have been in the vanguard of the movement for environmental responsibility, because of our doctrines of creation and stewardship.  Did God make the world? Does He sustain it? Has He committed its resources to our care? His personal concern for His own creation should be sufficient to inspire us to be equally concerned.”

Our relationship to the natural world is that of steward—the one who is responsible to care for what God has made. Homo sapiens is the only responsible species. How responsible have we been?

See you outdoors,

Dean

Because so much of our time is spent with the regular affairs of men—and spent insulated and isolated in homes, offices, stores, and cars—I think most of us have lost the awareness of a critical fact about the natural world: the committed and obedient follower of Christ really has a greater affinity with the natural creation than with the world of “those who are perishing” (those who are rejecting Christ).  Why is that?

1) Because both we and the natural world acknowledge, celebrate, and worship God, the Creator.

“Let the floods clap [their] hands: let the hills be joyful together” (Psalm 98:8); “For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap [their] hands” (Isaiah 55:12).
[I believe from Scriptures like these that all created things in their own natures can respond to their Creator.]

What about the perishing?
“[The God-deniers] exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:24-25).

2) Because both we and the natural world groan under the curse and are both looking forward with eager anticipation to the coming of Christ and to the restoration that will occur at His coming.

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:18-23);

What about the perishing?
“In the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, ‘Where is this “coming” he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.’ But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed. . . .” (2 Peter 3:3-5).

3) Because both we and the creatures of the natural world will join our voices in that great doxology of the end times to celebrate the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ that released us both from sin and the curse.

“And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, ‘Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever’” (Revelation 5:13).

What about the perishing?
“[The disobedient] are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts” (Ephesians 4:18).

4) Because both we and the natural world are grateful recipients of the love of God.

“The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made” (Psalm 145:8-9). “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD” (Psalm 150:6). “The LORD is righteous in all his ways and loving towards all he has made” (Psalm 145:17).  “Surely the righteous will praise your name and the upright will live before you” (Psalm 140:13).

What about the perishing?
“For although [the rebellious] knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21).

5) Because we and the natural world will enjoy peace (shalom) together in that great Kingdom to come.

“The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:6-9).

What about the perishing?
“The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars– their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.” (Revelation 21:8)

These verses should give us a double motivation: to appreciate more the natural world that will share the coming redemption with us—and to motivate us to reach the lost so they too will share it with us: you, me, our presently lost neighbors, and all the restored wonders of creation basking in the everlasting love of our Creator and Savior.

See you outdoors,

Dean

My friend Bob Barr, director of support services for the Au Sable Institute for Environmental Studies, once shared with me how the wonder of creation made a profound impact on his life–an impact that is still bearing fruit.  [See the Website Link to Au Sable in the sidebar.]

Bob had returned from his tour of duty in Vietnam healthy in body but wounded emotionally and spiritually.  Though he was a follower of Christ, he felt estranged from his Creator and confused about what God was doing in his life-indeed, what God was doing in and with the world.  He was angry and frustrated with God.  Hoping to at least get relief from dwelling on this inner turmoil, he joined a group of friends on a backpacking trip into the mountains of Colorado.  While the excitement and toil of the trek distracted him temporarily from his spiritual struggle, the restlessness in his soul kept breaking through into his consciousness-compelling him one evening to go off alone into the alpine tundra that surrounded their campsite high above the tree line.

Here’s the story Bob told:

I remember walking away from the camp one evening and looking across a narrow valley.  We were at 11,500 feet, camped at the foot of a sheer rock face that went up to 13,800 feet. The sun was beginning to set-filling the sky and landscape with spectacular colors, and I was struck by God’s power and the majesty of the world that He had created. Then my eyes were drawn down to my feet where tuffets of tundra grass were crowned with little flowers. On the side of one tuft was a little opening, and a small bird was nesting there-surrounded by beautiful white and blue wildflowers.  As I bent down to look closer, the bird flew away leaving behind tiny eggs the size of jellybeans. At once I was overwhelmed with God’s presence, thinking about His power and authority and majesty as the Creator of these mountains.

 

He had created this vast vista, but He also cared to create beautiful little flowers and these tiny birds to live in this harsh environment. They were nesting there very comfortably-God caring for the small things in the midst of this awesome bigness. His presence was then was so real to me that I still get emotional thinking about it more than thirty years later. I felt His presence so strongly that I couldn’t stand up. I was forced to my knees. And if you can hear an audible voice of God, I heard that voice, and His words to me were, “Bob, I am with you. And everything is okay.”

In the quiet wonder of a mountain wilderness, Bob discovered the presence of One who long ago had said, “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).  A sojourn in the wilderness produced, once again, the profound spiritual healing that so many followers of Christ have experienced over the centuries.

[If you have a story like this to tell,
please feel free to share it.]

See you outdoors,

Dean

I Went out for a hike with two granddaughters last evening: Ava and Anna. They were really disappointed that we got to our favorite lake after sundown—until we got mooned.  I mean we were really mooned!  While tossing bright-yellow autumn sassafras leaves on the dark blue water, we looked up to find the full moon sneaking slowly up and over a lakeside copse of fiery maples.

And once we focused on what the evening light was doing on the water, we got a Monet experience.  Well, I got the Monet, but their being 5 and 3, they merely got the impression—which I suppose was exactly Monet’s creative point.  Now as much as I love Monet, I do have to say that the divine Creator left with me, and I hope our granddaughters as well, visual impressions a bit more awe-inspiring.

It didn’t hurt the impressions at all that three swans, a dozen Canada geese and a few Mallards were experiencing the dramatic dusk with us. I always wonder if they see beauty too.

See you outdoors,

Dean

I walked home for lunch today (.72 miles one way according to Google Earth) and I still sense the pleasure of being showered with spent needles from a grove of white pines along my way.  The path was littered with pine straw and the unique pitch-tipped cones that make the tree so easily identifiable.  But best of all was the scent–that wonderful pine fragrance that emanates from the sun-warmed boughs carried by the clear fall air of West Michigan. 

It reminded me of an excerpt from a book by George MacDonald.  I had already been touched in my soul for years by the sensory delights of the piney woods when I came across MacDonald’s novel The Musician’s Quest about a man drawn by nature to nature’s God.  Robert Falconer, the main character, who had been constantly repulsed by spiritually stagnant and/or phony church people, was out on a walk pondering whether God was truly there when “a gentle wind, laden with pine odors from the sun-heated trees behind him, flapped its tight wing in his face.”  This scent and all nature around him soon became a divine messenger:

Strange as it may sound to those who have never thought of such things except in connection with Sundays and Bibles and churches and sermons, that which was now working in Falconer’s mind was the first dull movement of the greatest need that the human heart possesses–the need of God.  There must be truth in the scent of that pinewood; someone must mean it. There must be a glory in those heavens that depends not upon our imagination; some power greater than they must dwell in them.  Some spirit must move in that wind that haunts us with a kind of human sorrow; some soul must look up to us from the eye of that starry flower.  Little did Robert think that such was his need–that his soul was searching after the One whose form was constantly presented to him, but as constantly obscured by the words without knowledge spoken in the religious assemblies of the land.  Little did he realize that he was longing without knowing it on Saturday for that from which on Sunday he would be repelled, again without knowing it.*

How many are touched by nature’s God in this way?  And how many of us are insensitive to it as we carry on from week to week in churches that may be repelling such susceptible souls by our collective insensitivities.  I often feel that the part of the creation that was not made in the Creator’s image is sometimes a better witness than we are. 

* Bethany House Publishers, pp 95-96