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.

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.

The LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.  And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food (Genesis 2:8-9)

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 (Romans 1:20)

I believe the key element in our recovering the lost theology of nature—a loss that is evident in our often insensitive and utilitarian approach to the natural world—is to recognize that the beauty of the created world is evidence of the Creator himself.  It’s significant that in the Genesis creation account the first fact mentioned about the trees of the garden was that they were “pleasing to the eye” (Gen. 2:9). Yes, they were “good for food,” but apparently what was most striking to Adam and Eve was their beauty.

It’s a worthy goal for us to regularly regard the beauty of the creation before we consider its utility.  It was this approach to the natural world that motivated John Muir to become a successful lobbyist in making Yosemite a national park—an approach that millions of people since that time have been grateful for. This same understanding led to the creation of all our national parks.  The utilitarian approach to Yellowstone, for instance, could have compelled some entrepreneurs to consider it more valuable as a massive geothermal power plant than a park.

"Falls of the Kaaterskill" Thomas Cole, 1826

John Muir believed that “everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”  The value of natural beauty to the human soul was what inspired the masterful landscape painter Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of painting.  With his paintings he wanted to put people back in touch with the Creator.  He hoped his paintings would give city-dwelling admirers a yearning for the outdoors where they too could discover what he had—that “in gazing on the pure creations of the Almighty, he feels a calm religious tone steal through his mind, and when he has turned to mingle [again] with his fellow men, the chords which have been struck in that sweet communion cease not to vibrate.”

Maybe that’s why I admire Cole’s paintings and not Picasso’s.  If we saw something like a Picasso in nature, we’d know at once it did not come from God’s hands!  Beauty may be nature’s most profound apologist for God.

[Old growth trees photo source: cramsay23]
[Clearcut forest photo source]

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. (Isaiah 61:1-3)

I don’t remember many sermons from my teen years, but I do recall the first time I heard one based on this picturesque prophecy from Isaiah.  “Beauty for ashes” was the theme, and it was about how God will take the negative things in life and turn them into something of beauty.  That, in fact, was what God seemed to do with the modern wilderness prophet John Muir.

Muir House, Martinez, CA

John’s stern and dour father, Daniel, had, among other things and with threat of the rod, compelled his kids to memorize the New Testament and many passages from the Old Testament. Daniel’s fondness for Scripture and meanness toward his children created great discord in their hearts, and John sought to escape as soon as he was old enough.  For the rest of his days, as far as we know, church and formal expressions of the Christian faith were not a part of his life.  But the Scriptures never left him. Nor did his understanding of God’s love expressed in nature.

For the past year I’ve been reading a lot of Muir’s writings—and have come to understand why his works remain popular even after a hundred years.  Besides his elegant prose, analogies, terms, and phrases from the Bible pop up all over in his books.  This Isaiah passage came up in his book The Mountains of California. He was describing the volcano blasted region around Mt. Lassen in Northern California, one of my favorite places.  After commenting on the impact of more recent eruptions on the land surrounding this still active volcano, he spoke of the areas long untouched by lava and ash, which were again vibrant with life:

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 having literally given beauty for ashes.

His use of the term was in fact a continuation of the metaphors used by the Isaiah—the prophet going on to define Israel’s divine purpose:  “that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He might be glorified.”

It may well be this passage that motivated John Muir himself to glorify the Creator in his life and writings and to, in essence, become the prophet of natural beauty.  The glacier-fed big trees of the Sierra—that I recently saw once again—seemed to overfill his soul with delight, as did the fresher forests of Alaska:

Look at that now! Why, it looks as if these giants of God’s great army had just now marched into their stations; every one placed just right, just right!  What landscape gardening! What a scheme of things!  And to think that [God] should plan to bring us feckless creatures here at the right moment, and then flash such glories at us!  Man. We’re not worthy of such honor!  “Praise God from whom all blessing flow”! [Note that every sentence ends with an exclamation mark.]

Photo source: Cornforth Images

Amen, John!

Watch a YouTube version of the Doxology (“Old Hundredth”)

Photos of the Muir house from my recent trip to California.  Trees among the cinders from a visit to Lava Beds National Monument

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.  And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food (Genesis 2:8-9)

I believe it’s significant that in the Genesis creation account the first fact mentioned about the trees of the garden was that they were “pleasing to the eye” (Gen. 2:9). For this reason I’m convinced that the beauty we see and sense in the natural world is one of the most important evidences of God’s divine nature.

Nineteenth century American statesman George Bancroft expressed it like this: “Beauty is but the sensible image of the Infinite. Like truth and justice it lives within us; like virtue and the moral law it is a companion of the soul.”

In commenting on William Cullen Bryant’s beliefs about beauty in nature, theologian Augustus Strong observed: “The external world is beautiful, because unfallen. It shares with man the effects of sin; but whenever we retreat from the regions which man’s folly has despoiled, we may find something that reminds us of our lost Paradise.”

John Muir believed that “everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.”

The value of natural beauty to the human soul was what inspired the masterful landscape painter Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of painting. With his paintings he wanted to put people back in touch with the Creator. He hoped his paintings would give city-dwelling admirers a yearning for the outdoors where they too could discover what he had—that “in gazing on the pure creations of the Almighty, he feels a calm religious tone steal through his mind, and when he has turned to mingle [again] with his fellow men, the chords which have been struck in that sweet communion cease not to vibrate.”

Beauty may be nature’s most profound apologist for God.

[The material above is from my RBC Discovery Series booklet "Celebrating the Wonder of Wilderness."  You can read the booklet online here.  You can also get copies of this booklet and others in the "Celebrating" series without cost by clicking on the right sidebar "Author Resources" collection of "Discovery Series."]

See you outdoors!

Dean