Solomon] spoke of trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish. And men of all nations, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom, came to hear the wisdom of Solomon
(1 Ki. 4:33-34).

Because I grew up in a Christian home, attended church all my life, and have worked for Christian schools and ministries my entire career, I’ve gone on countless “retreats.” In a military sense, of course, to retreat means to back away from the enemy. This is often done to prevent defeat and capture—with the ultimate aim to strengthen and reequip your own forces so you can once again go on the offensive and hopefully be victorious.

Churches, missions, and ministries sometimes use spiritual retreats for a similar purpose—to provide temporary escape from opposing physical and spiritual forces.  Perhaps taking their cue from withdrawals into the wilderness mentioned in the Bible, some Christian ministries bring their people to attractive and remote natural areas for a retreat. The wisdom of this is evident when we consider what we’re less likely to face in such places:

• Too many voices to attend to
• Too many people to relate to
• An overload of news (information)
• An overabundance of technologies
• Extraneous noise
• The need to talk incessantly
• Constant time pressure

Most of us could benefit from lessening these manmade distractions by going on a “civilization fast.” But while there are some obvious physical benefits from this sort of retreat, this list of negatives relates primarily to the spiritual. When we’re surrounded by the many positive evidences of God’s eternal power and divine nature and are at the same time relieved of these many negatives, our souls have an opportunity to rest and to remain open to the voice and calling of God’s Holy Spirit.  Two of my most profound encounters with the Holy Spirit occurred when I was quiet and alone in the outdoors

While we tend to think of wilderness retreats as being important for adults, we often forget that children need them as well. I would propose, in fact, that children today need these experiences more than ever. When our own children were young, my wife, Marge, was a homemaker, and her activities with the kids were mostly domestic. When the three boys became restless with toys, television, and household tedium, sibling strife frequently broke out. By the weekend, Marge was ready to turn them over to me so she could get out of the house and go somewhere to regain her sanity!

So the boys and I would go fishing, or we would take a trip to the ocean tide pools, the wooded hills, or the desert. “Were the boys okay for you?” she’d sometimes ask when we returned. They always were. Eventually she stopped asking because she came to realize that there is enchantment in the wilderness that can alter the behavior of children. Books have even been written about that kind of magic [see Last Child In the Woods]. Rustic camps and lodges can be an important alternative to comfortable resorts where seemingly endless activities distract from the spiritual benefits of the wilderness. Safe access to wild places offered in these places can help young and old alike to gain knowledge that will increase their sense of wonder in God’s creation.

The solitude and quietness offered there provide opportunities for people to more thoroughly contemplate their Creator’s words in the light of His works. In so doing, they may gain wisdom similar to that attained by King Solomon. When we neglect the chances we have to observe characteristics of God’s eternal power and divine nature that can be discovered in the wild places, we are denying ourselves of knowledge that is critical to our spiritual growth and witness.

Collectively, we buy thousands of books to read about knowing God. What we often miss, however, is the opportunity to enter the wild places that showcase the wonder of God’s handiwork and be once again impressed with aspects of the created world that can only enhance our worship of the One who made it.

The Lord said to Job] “Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might take the earth by the edges and shake the wicked out of it? The earth takes shape like clay under a seal; its features stand out like those of a garment. The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken [Job 38:12-15].

I was having coffee with my friend Jack this morning, and he told me about taking a cruise through the Alaskan fjords.  One day he was up early and taking in the awe-inspiring view of mountains beginning to stand out in the early morning sun—like folds of a garment.  While he was taking in the beauty of it all, he overheard a conversation between two men nearby.  One of their comments stunned him:  “What in the world is the value of this land; you could never really do anything with it.”

One would hope that Jack’s inner thought would be common to most of us: “Thank God that mankind can’t do anything with it!”  Sometimes I think we’d all like to see God break a few upraised arms of men.

China's Three Gorges Dam

Every generation seems to have what I call a “pride of the present”: we tend to believe that our thinking is sounder and our worldview more informed than the previous one—perhaps even all previous generations.  This is especially apparent in regard to the natural world—which modern science and technology believes it has virtually mastered.  Because nature has been our easy provider, willing patient, and sometimes cadaver for so long, we have tended to lose respect for it.  And what we no longer respect, we can easily come to abuse.

I feel we modern followers of Christ have also become somewhat blind followers of technology and have adopted the same utilitarian view toward God’s good creation that we see in much of science and industry.  This utilitarian approach, however, is really the child of the humanistic “Enlightenment” and the subsequent Industrial Revolution, not of a true understanding of the theology of nature.

Interestingly, two of the most significant Reformers, John Calvin and Martin Luther, had been quite successful in framing a sound biblical theology of nature in the 16th century that corrected the faulty dualistic theology of the Middle Ages that saw the material world as something low and degraded that needed to be escaped from (a view that goes all the way back to Plato and is also foundational to Eastern religions).  Their followers eventually became the champions of the “Protestant work ethic” that in part led to the Industrial Revolution and the ultimate devaluation of the creation that Calvin and Luther had helped to free from mysticism and dualism.  See the Wikipedia article about it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_work_ethic

Calvin and Luther both had a high view of the natural world that I think we need to recapture.  I firmly believe we need to trade our pride of the present for humility and an understanding that other generations before us may have had a more biblically sound view of the creation than we do.  I go into depth on that issue in the article “Listening To the Right Voices,” which you can get to by going to the “Articles” button at the top of the page.

To whet your appetite on rethinking how Christians ought to consider the creation, let me drop in a couple quotes on this post that you can also find on this Website under “Creation Quotations”:

From Luther:
“Now if I believe in God’s Son and bear in mind that He became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before.  Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, pears, as I reflect that he is Lord over and the center of all things.”

From Calvin:

“In every part of the world, in heaven and on earth, he has written and as it were engraven the glory of his power, goodness and eternity…. For all creatures, from the firmament even to the center of the earth, could be witnesses and messengers of his glory to all men, drawing them on to seek him and, having found him, to do him service and honor according to the dignity of a Lord so good, so potent, so wise and everlasting….For the little singing birds sang of God, the animals acclaimed Him, the elements feared and the mountains resounded with Him, the river and springs threw glances toward Him, the grasses and the flowers smiled.”

Because of our generational pride and our loss of sensitivity to the natural world I wonder often if we can ever regain the biblical perspective these influential reformers understood.

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 8:22-23).

There is one doleful aspect to the generally delightful start of spring here in Michigan.  It comes with the melting of the snow: Car-slain deer carcasses not long ago hidden beneath shrouds of white are thrusting up their broken ribs as flags for carrion-hungry crows, ravens, and vultures.  Added to this are the scattered bodies of raccoons, opossum, skunks, and other creatures that have never gained understanding, as have the crows and ravens, of the physics of speeding automobiles.

My old orchard is brown and gray with here and there a few bright spots of brilliant red provided by clusters of high bush cranberries shriveled and ready to be pushed off their stems by the pressure of sap called up from the roots by increased sunlight and warmth.

Because of the normal early spring drabness of the orchard, my eyes were captured one March day last year by a spot of shocking yellow.  I thought another bit of litter must have been blown into this little patch of wild that I treasure; so I walked over to remove the offense—and was blessed to discover what I had not seen there before: a cluster of crocuses. They looked like a tiny chunk of sun fallen through the clouds to remind me of the glory of rebirth soon to fill this spot.

As the first blooms of spring, crocuses are hope flowers.  They symbolize that wonderful passage from Romans 8.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 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.  For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.  In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.  And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8:18-28).

I highlighted two important recurring words in this passage: hope and groan.  This is the wonder of the “whole Gospel.”  Nature groans in its present circumstances—groaning often caused both accidentally and deliberately by mankind.  We groan too—in pain and in the realization that until Jesus returns, we will suffer unto death.  And the Holy Spirit groans.

Understandable isn’t it.  What we know from the second verse in the Bible is that the Spirit is the One who oversees and provides life.  Life is the Spirit’s everlasting work.  Yet on this earth now, the Spirit also hovers over death in all its forms.  So the Spirit groans with and for us in our pain and our dying.  And I believe the Spirit groans with the suffering of creation—suffering set before our own eyes almost daily in the form of crushed roadkill.

Yet within this cheerless setting is the bright Sonlight of hope: the wonderful realization that the pain of nature is not meaningless pain. 

Creation’s pain is pregnant pain! At its completion comes both birth and rebirth.

So for the present follower of Christ and all who will come to know Him in the future, there is not one day that will not have a crocus of hope in it.  Our suffering will cease, not only with our soul’s eventual flight to the arms of Jesus, but also when our souls are reunited with our new incorruptible bodies and we again experience wonderful material life from the Spirit and share it in inexpressible joy with the reborn, refreshed, renewed creation that now groans—yet groans always in hope. (1 Corinthians 15:35-49)

[Snowy crocus photo source: by longwayround]

Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land (Song 2:11-12 KJV).

I was reared on the King James Version of the Scofield Reference Bible, and as a kid this passage from the Song of Solomon always filled me with awe and curiosity: I knew Michigan turtles and their habits well, and the only noise I ever heard from a turtle was the splash they made when I made dashes to snatch them from their sunny resting  spots.  So to discover that in Bible times turtles actually sang to welcome spring was a wonder to me.

Then, lo, the later translations came along and spoiled my treasured misconception:

See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.

"The Turtle Dove"

So the KJV translators had meant turtle dove,  not turtle.

Nonetheless, at this time of the year when bird life is singing a sayonara serenade to winter, I still like to think of  singing turtles rejoicing in expectation of the arrival of spring.

I love the changing of the seasons.  In a world of constant change—politics, economics, employment figures, cultural shifts, computer hardware and software upgrades, ever-smarter cell phones—I HAVE to go outdoors.  My point-seven-two walk to and from work provides me at least a small daily dose of staying in touch with what is unchanging.  While change does happen in the natural world—especially in the north where all four seasons are dramatically different from each other—this change is expected, regular, normal, and older than humanity.  My soul craves such orderly constancy—constancy that has absolutely nothing to do with me.

Skunk cabbages, trillium, and jacks-in-the-pulpit unfold in that order at the marsh verges after the winter thaw every year.  Crows steal songbird eggs, gang up, and harass owls and hawks every year.  Newly arrived song sparrows sit on bush tops and celebrate life and procreation every nesting season. Robins, cedar waxwings, and starlings compete for old crabapples every spring.  Cicadas brreeee and katydids skritch every waning summer.  Sugar maples and sumacs flame every fall.  Snow turns my landscape drabness to light every winter.  Year after year after year.

And all of this occurs regardless of what happens on Wall Street, who is in the White House, when broadcast TV is going digital, who has been born and who has died, whether or not Osama bin Laden still survives, or whether or not I choose to have my molars crowned or pulled.

In the natural world, if I and my neighbors have not messed it up too badly, I can forget the vicissitudes of my life, and find both confidence and hope in the constancy of earth’s life as promised long ago by our Creator:

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease (Genesis 8:22).

I, you, and our children need to deliberately spend time outdoors if for no other reason, as Henry David Thoreau said, than to “not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails.”  Blessed constancy from the hand and plan of God gives my soul a sunny resting spot.

[Source of girl and turtle dove painting: The Turtle Dove by Sophie Gengembre Anderson.]
[Source of sunning turtles: by OldOnliner]

Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
(Luke 5:16)

I bless the camp counselor who first sent me out into “the creation” for a personal quiet time alone.  It was at Camp Michawana in west-central Michigan.  My dad was on the board of the camp.  He had been since Lance Latham, the founder of AWANA, was compelled by a Michigan state land-use policy decision to move his Chicago-based youth camping program out of Michigan to Wisconsin in 1945. The camp program was conducted for about eight weeks each summer at facilities built in the thirties by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).  It was set on the sandy shore of a shallow little lake.

The counselor believed it was beneficial for his boys to have a time of solitude and quietness with God for about a half hour each morning; so we were assigned to go into the woods to find our private spots.  The significance of his assignment is highlighted by the fact that some fifty years later, I could still take you to that spot.  Images of it remain vivid in my mind: A mossy hump at the base of a big white pine that leaned over the shore of Long Lake.  Some of the tree’s roots arched into the water where their shadows provided cover for shelter-seeking bass.  Turtles, frogs, and dragonflies were my companions as I sat there contemplating my Bible-study lesson for the day.  I realize now that the biblical principles I was consciously absorbing were virtually parallel in benefit to the spiritual values I was receiving unconsciously from being alone and receptive to the voice of God and to the influence of natural beauty.

Several years ago I picked up an old book titled Work, Play, and the Gospel, by Malcolm Spencer.  In his chapter on the beauty and life of the Spirit he speaks of the significance of natural beauty to our souls:

Grace is the word which we attach preeminently to that quality of the life of Jesus which makes us long to be like Him, and it is also the word we use to express that overflowing bounty of God which produces in man incalculable inflows of spiritual life.  We have but to awake to the beauty of things, and to believe that life is meant for discovery and reproduction of beauty, because God is like that, and from every corner of the world where beauty lurks, spiritual life and energy come flooding into our souls.

John Muir reminds us that “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”  This is  echoed by Marya Mannes:  “The great omission in American life is solitude; not loneliness, for this is an alienation that thrives most in the midst of crowds, but that zone of time and space, free from the outside pressures, which is the incubator of the spirit.”

Take some time today to tend to your soul by experiencing solitude, quietness, and dwelling on something beautiful from the hand of our Creator, be it the African violet on the window sill, the hummingbird at the feeder, or a walk in the park.