As the PBS series on America’s National Parks continues throughout this week, I continue to be impressed with how many of those who championed these natural wonders saw in them the hand of the Creator, not just the raw forces of nature. Many were no doubt familiar with the biblical passage from Romans 1:

The basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of His divine being (Romans 1:19-20 The Message).

The many ways we understand God’s eternal power and His right alone to be worshiped in what He has created can somewhat be experienced vicariously through pictures or words. Few people fail to be touched by a stunning photo of natural beauty or a gripping verbal description of natural events. But that’s not enough for our souls. To truly grasp creation’s meaning, one must experience it. Being in the wild highlights our finiteness, vulnerability, and our utter and complete dependence upon the creating and sustaining power of God.  And our national parks are ideal places for us experience this soul healing activity.

John Calvin called the natural world the “theater of God’s glory,” but it is even more than a theater; it’s a cathedral. And awareness of God’s holiness (His right alone to be worshiped) occurs only when we enter it with the right spirit. The word “cathedral” comes from the Latin term for “chair”: cathedra. Traditionally a cathedral is the sacred place where a church bishop has his chair of authority—his throne. While human bishops are supposed to keep us mindful of our stewardship role in the created order, too often the trappings and traditions of man hinder our capacity to hear the “still, small voice” of God inside our church buildings.

For that reason, it’s important for us to preserve and treasure the cathedral of wilderness where we see that God, the ultimate authority, is clearly on the throne and where His wordless revelation can still be clearly seen and understood (Romans 1:20). When truly attentive people enter the wild places, they immediately recognize the signs that this is holy ground—a place where to them a flaming autumn maple is no less evidence of God’s miracle-working power and presence than the burning bush was to Moses.

Also important is for us to recognize that in the wilderness sanctuary we’re not alone in the impulse to worship. God’s other creatures worship there as well. As the prophets Isaiah and David remind us, all created things in their own nature respond to God—even trees, rivers, and mountains. (Isa. 55:12; Psa. 98:8) This amazing truth from the Old Testament is echoed in the Revelation where all God’s creatures are seen as worshiping the One who died in order that the cosmos may be redeemed: “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, I heard saying: ‘Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb [Jesus Christ], forever and ever!’” (Rev. 5:13)

Note in that passage how the apostle John explicitly includes the entire biosphere: creatures in the sky, on the earth, under the earth, on the sea, and in the sea. Imagine the scene: larks, dragonflies, rabbits, badgers, moles, trap-door spiders, Portugese men-of-war, sharks, and sea stars all attending to the Redeemer-Creator and singing!

Who says Narnia is fiction? Aslan is the Lion of Judah who will make things right! Think of the joy that will fill the Hundred-Acre Wood. Tigger will jump higher than ever and Eeyore, then the eternal optimist, will “bouncy-bounce” with him. Earth will be Peralandra, and Neverland will become Everland!

Let us repent of our sinful lack of compassion for the other creatures of the earth and of our lack of care for the marvelous handiwork of God that has faithfully given witness from the beginning of His divine nature and eternal power. With our hearts and with our hands, let us work toward the anticipated restoration of the good Earth. And allow this wonderful hymn, penned by a Hebrew psalmist some three thousand years ago, resound in our hearts whenever we worship in creation’s cathedral:

Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heights! Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His hosts! Praise Him, sun and moon; praise Him, all you stars of light! Praise Him, you heavens of heavens, and you waters above the heavens! Let them praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded and they were created. He also established them forever and ever; He made a decree which shall not pass away. Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all the depths; fire and hail, snow and clouds; stormy wind, fulfilling His word; mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; creeping things and flying fowl; kings of the earth and all peoples; princes and all judges of the earth; both young men and maidens; old men and children. Let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted; His glory is above the earth and heaven (Psalm 148:1-13).

See you outdoors!

Dean

This week’s PBS series  The National Parks: America’s Best Idea raises questions  about the value of saving not only our most unique national natural treasures, but also large portions of our nation’s remaining wilderness areas.

The colonizers of America saw the wilderness primarily as a storehouse of “natural resources” out of which to make products, a living, and perhaps even a fortune.  Lumber barons in great number accomplished the latter.  Our town of Grand Rapids and many other Midwestern cities are still graced with their opulent and elegant homes—some of which demonstrate masterful woodworking skills that are now mostly lost or considered too costly to “bother with.”

There was little understanding then about the other values of wilderness—and certainly no grasp of the fact that such seemingly inexhaustible resources could be depleted.  Our forebears lived as though there were no limits.  Consider the redwoods, those long-lived and awe-inspiring giants of the forest that were seen as resources for the benefit of mankind alone until they were diminished to only four percent of the former range.  Those left are finally treasured by most of us, but many stands are still threatened by those who still see in them only an opportunity for their own financial gain.

Certainly our wild areas have provided us with wonderful resources for our use and benefit. But we seem slow to learn that wilderness is so much more than a place of economic opportunity. When we look at an Appalachian mountain as mostly a mound of coal or a hill of timber for us to use for our own purposes, we may be failing to see it comprehensively. A second look can help us to see the same mountain as a watershed, a climate regulator, a source of clean air, a shield against flooding, a habitat for wild creatures, a thing of beauty, a place of peace and solitude, a location for recreation, and the home places of thousands of our fellow Americans.  And we are not seeing it as God sees it—in all its glory with all its purposes.

It’s part of our God-given trust of the earth to have a comprehensive and biblical vision when looking at the wilderness. Followers of Christ have so many reasons to value the wilderness. Because we see the natural world as entrusted to us by an infinitely wise Creator, it’s not difficult to see the wilderness as a treasure of inestimable worth. It allows the wild creatures to fulfill their God-given responsibility to multiply and fill their portion of the earth. Caring for the wilderness is an aspect of the dominion and stewardship mandated to us by our Creator. Further, it helps to preserve our own health and to assure our continued survival. Further still, it no doubt holds many future benefits we are currently not even aware of.

Nancy Newhall reminded us over fifty years ago, in a book featuring the masterful black-and-white wilderness photos of Ansel Adams, that “the wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned to ask.”

Finally, we come to an observation by John Muir:  “Like most other things not apparently useful to man, [poison oak] has few friends, and the blind question, ‘Why was it made?’ goes on and on with never a guess that first of all it was made for itself.”

Muir was hinting at a purpose for the natural world that the patriarch Job learned when God paraded before his mental vision the entire cosmos He created. In the longest direct address of God in the Scriptures (the 129 verses of Job 38-41), the Creator Himself uses numerous parts of the natural world that were at that time in history beyond human control, human understanding, and human utility to humble Job with the reality that we cannot know all the purposes of God for wild creatures and wild places.

The apostle John, however, does reveal to us one of God’s purposes: He created all things for His pleasure (Rev. 4:11 KJV). So if the natural world was in part created to give God pleasure, are we not being irreverent when we forget that while people can preserve, conserve, or destroy the wilderness, only God can create it?

In the course of our enjoying and properly valuing the wilderness, we can be motivated by the words of Isaac Watts:

I sing the mighty power of God that made the mountains rise,
That spread the flowing seas abroad and built the lofty skies.
I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day;
The moon shines full at His command and all the stars obey.

I sing the goodness of the Lord that filled the earth with food;
He formed the creatures with His word and then pronounced
them good.
Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed where’er I turn my eye:
If I survey the ground I tread or gaze upon the sky!

There’s not a plant or flower below but makes Thy glories known;
And clouds arise and tempests blow by order from Thy throne;
While all that borrows life from Thee is ever in Thy care,
And everywhere that man can be, Thou, God, art present there.

[Hear the Ball Brothers singing this wonderful hymn.]

See you outdoors!

Dean

My not being a TV junkie, I missed the announcements about the Ken Burns’ PBS special that began last night (Sunday): The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. But since I usually begin each week with “Nature” on PBS, I stumbled upon it—and was totally captivated.

Narration near the beginning was familiar, and when I detected the actor’s  Scottish accent, I knew it had to be statements by John Muir, America’s “nature prophet”—and, arguably, the best of our nature writers.  Episode 1 was subtitled “The Scripture of Nature,” and you can view it online, just as all six episodes will be viewable after their first showing this week.

Because Muir was compelled by his father’s brutal discipline to memorize huge portions of Scripture [read his childhood story here], his writings are filled with biblical phrases and allusions ironically and almost entirely couched in expressions of love and tenderness.  Below are a just a few that I noted in reading his classic The Mountains of California:

Referring to the volcanic peaks:

Less recent craters in great numbers roughen the adjacent region; some of them with lakes in their throats, others  overgrown with trees and flowers. Nature in these old hearths and firesides literally given beauty for ashes.

Referring to glaciers:

These mighty agents of erosion, halting never through unnumbered centuries, crushed and ground the flinty lavas and granites beneath their crystal folds, wasting and building until in the fulness of time the Sierra was born again brought to light nearly as we behold it today. . . . Plants and animals, biding their time, closely followed the retiring ice, bestowing quick and joyous animation on the new-born landscapes.

Contemplating the works of these flowers of the sky [snowflakes], one may easily fancy them endowed with life: messengers sent down to work in the mountain mines on errands of divine love.  Silently flying through the darkened air, swirling, glinting, to their appointed places, they seem to have take counsel together, saying, “Come, we are feeble; let us help one another.  We are many, and together we will be strong.  Marching in close, deep ranks, let us roll away the stones from these mountain sepulchers, and set the landscapes free.”

It was one of the golden days of the Sierra Indian summer, when the rich sunshine glorifies every landscape however rocky and cold, and suggests anything rather than glaciers.  The path of the vanished glacier was warm now, and shone in many places as if washed with silver.  The tall pines growing on moraines stood transfigured in the glowing light, the poplar groves on the levels of the basin were masses of orange-yellow, and the late-blooming goldenrods added gold to gold.

On the high peaks of the Sierras:

In so wild and so beautiful a region was spent my first day, every sight and sound inspiring, leading one far out of himself, yet feeding and building up his individuality.  Now came the solemn, silent evening.  Long, blue, spikey shadows crept out across the snow-fields, while a rosy glow, at first scarce discernible, gradually deepened and suffused every mountaintop, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them.  This was the alpenglow, to me one of the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God.  At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed and waiting like devout worshipers. . . .

In tone and aspect the scene was one of the most desolate I ever beheld.  But the darkest scriptures of the mountains are illumined with bright passages of love that never fail to make themselves felt when one is alone.

You can read a couple of my previous posts on Muir here:

http://www.wonderofcreation.org/2009/04/21/thanks-for-saving-yosemite-john/

http://www.wonderofcreation.org/2009/04/08/whats-mine-is-mine/

Read an article on John Muir in Christian History here.

So unless you are watching the rest of the PBS special series each evening this week, I’ll. . .

. . . see you outdoors!

Dean

Last Monday, Sept. 14, my post on “Native Spirituality” (coming at the end of my brief series on Manitoulin Island) started a long series of comments—comments that continued the following day regarding “Learning From the Ojibway.” You can click over to those posts and read the comment thread, which will provide some examples of mutual understanding and some talking past each other.

I feel bad that there was no real resolution on how much Native North American Christians and Christians of European descent can really communicate with and understand each other.  The miss-communication compelled me to search for materials from three Native North American men whose words and writing have impressed me in the past: Adrian Jacobs, Terry LeBlanc, and Richard Twiss. Fortunately, I was able to find an excellent article co-authored by all three that first appeared in the Journal of the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies in 2003.

The article was titled “Culture, Christian Faith, and Error,” and it was reprinted for the sample journal that appeared after the 7th World Christian Gathering of Indigenous People (WCGIP) in Jerusalem in September of 2008.  I attended the 2nd WCGIP in Rapid City, SD, eleven years ago.  I found the article to be enlightening, and I recommend it to anyone who wishes to understand more about the sticky issues of missions, outreach, and syncretism.  Here is the “first word” offered by these co-authors:

The subject of this paper is a contentious issue for many people
in the Native Christian world today. It has been made very
complex because of the personal and social “baggage” attached
to it. Many people feel it is an area best left alone. It is our
feeling however, that to “leave it alone” is to consign countless
more Aboriginal people to an eternity separated from their
Creator—one whose love for them is so great that He sent his
son to die that they might have life. It is for this reason that we
pursue anew this need in the Native work in Canada and the
U.S.

Below are a couple more clips from the article that I found significant:

A proper way to view mission [to Native North Americans] would have been (and would be today):

“We are Christian because we have embraced the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ; you are not because you have not embraced this message. But, we see the hand of God at work in you. Let us tell you about the one who can fulfill that work. His name is Jesus and He is the Creator’s son.”

Properly presented, this is what the Jerusalem Council advocated in Acts 15 and what Paul practiced in Acts 17 on Mars Hill. This represents a Fulfillment oriented theology of mission.

For people of a western world view, [the]cultural locus is rooted
in the pursuit of success, financial growth, progress (defined as
increasing technological and material advancement), “getting
ahead” or, climbing the social/intellectual ladder in pursuit of
an end state defined by “security and stability.” In contrast,
indigenous people’s locus is in earth systems and creation,
harmony with other elements of natural creation, stewardship
of the land, restoration of brokenness, preservation and
maintenance of created order —in pursuit of a state similar to
the Hebrew concept of “shalom”.

I firmly believe that this difference in cultural locus is the critical issue.  And I have to confess that the indigenous worldview seems to be far more biblical to me than the Western one.

Surf on over to the NAIITS journal and spend some time with it.  I think you will find that it provides a great deal more light than the brief discussion that took place on this forum over the past week.

See you outdoors!

Dean

What a wildly wonderful world, God! You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, made earth overflow with your wonderful creations.”  (Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of one of my favorite verses about the Creator and His creation: Psalm 104:24 from The Message).

One hundred species of goldenrod even!

“Solidago” is the genus name of goldenrod, made up of Latin terms that could have meant to the original scientific classifier, “sun dagger.”  I love these goldenrod days—for a variety of reasons: they typically herald the end of the uncomfortably hot days of summer, they mark the coming of fall with its anti-chlorophyll insurgence, and they’re just simply beautiful—especially when an entire field of goldenrod appears like a mirror to reflect the face of the sun.

Spring wildflowers are subtle and quiet (excepting dandelions!), appearing mostly in the deep shade and often hidden to those who don’t actually walk in the woods.  Fall wildflowers, on the other hand, are loud and brazen—revealing their glory even to speeding freeway travelers like a vast crowd of bridal attendants in brilliant silks, satins, and chiffons standing in rapt attention as the Preacher pronounces His blessing on the due process of life and procreation.

In the north, goldenrod is by far the most effusive fall wildflower, washing the country canvass with yellow upon which the Creator dabs purplish aster, white boneset, and a variety of colors and sizes of fleabane, and the last of the daisies, Queen Anne’s lace, and black-eyed Susans.

New England aster

As a kid I was of the hand-me-down impression that goldenrod was the cause of hay fever—an impression that was wrong.  Ragweed produces its spiked wind-blown pollen just when goldenrod blooms.  And it is the cause of most fall plant allergies, but because its flowers remain mostly green, it stays below our visual radar.  Goldenrod pollen is sticky and heavy and is spread not by the wind, but by dozens of different pollinators that make a field of goldenrod busy like a factory.

The Canada goldenrod, the most common variety, is also the typical host of the goldenrod gall fly, a tiny insect that inserts its eggs into the flower stem.  When the egg hatches, the larval fly begins to eat the plant material, its saliva causing the goldenrod to produce extra growth at the spot which sometimes grows to the size of golf ball: a gall.  So in the winter many of the dead brown stalks sport this noticeable gall ball that downy woodpeckers and Carolina chickadees in particular see as an invitation to a meal—because the larva remains in the plant all winter long, its having the capacity to create an antifreeze that keeps it alive in subfreezing temperatures.  A few times I collected several dozen of these galls to pluck out the larval fly, which is excellent ice-fishing bait for panfish.  But I found most of them already emptied by other insect predators.

The joy of the outdoors for me is in discovering that every form of life is full of wonder, and much of that wonder still remains a mystery.  Science may indeed provide us with many answers about the wonders of creation, but it is still baffled by the source and even the nature of life itself.  And that brings us back to the psalmist:  “[Your] knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (139:6).  We talk about the “information explosion” we’re experiencing.   Can you imagine how blown away we would be if the divine genius that resides in the common goldenrod—a plant that comes in over a hundred different varieties—actually revealed all its knowledge to us?  “Too wonderful” I’m sure would be my response.

See you outdoors!

Dean