Seeing Creation

I am one who studied science in college and actually have bachelor’s and masters of sciences degrees. I have never felt that this was a problem with God or my belief in God. I remember a very wonderful biology textbook that rightly, I think, pointed out that science has no part in religion because you cannot prove or disprove God’s existence by science. That is what faith is all about.

The scientific evidence is very clear about climate change. We are altering the course of the planet’s natural systems. I happen to believe that God created those systems and we are rather arrogant to think that we have no responsibility for them. I don’t believe that man is smarter than God and can alter his work without consequences.

I believe all of this goes further. If we believe that God created our world, plants, animals, us, etc., then we honor God by treating his creations with respect. We would arrest and jail someone who defaced the artwork of an artist such as Van Gogh or Michelangelo, yet it seems okay to arbitrarily disrupt and deface God’s artwork, His creation? I don’t get that.

These thoughts were all brought on by something I found very disturbing about some extreme conservative Christians and climate change, http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2009/06/29/us-conservative-christians-sound-cap-and-trade-alarms. Now I do think we have to be concerned about dollars and how people are affected. But to claim climate change isn’t possible because it isn’t Biblical is one of the strangest interpretations of the Bible I have seen. The idea promoted is that the Bible says God created the world and said it was good, so therefore, global warming is impossible because that would not be good. That has to be one of the most absurd things I have heard, and a mangling of the Bible. If we destroy an artist’s work, it is evidently okay to do this because when the artist created it, it was good! God created beautiful forests and sometimes we have destroyed them, but by this line of thinking, that is not true, evidently, because the forests were good first because God made them long ago, therefore we cannot make them bad.

In Genesis 2:15, it says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”  Taking care of God’s creation implies responsibility. I think that as a nature photographer, I have the chance to praise God through sharing a vision about his creation, but I also have a responsibility to take care of it.

–Rob Sheppard

I have a beautiful poster of calligraphy framed that I see every time I leave the house.  The artwork is done by Timothy R. Botts.  In the middle of the picture are words from Ralph Waldo Emerson that say “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”  Encircling the text are the names of forty-one items that Botts apparently thought demonstrated what Emerson was talking about.  Among the items there are butterfly, starfish, Old Faithful, Redwoods, snowflake, tadpoles, coral, honeybee, the tides, the Grand Canyon and Saturn. 

Looking at Botts’ list makes me wonder what I would have chosen had I been the calligrapher.  I suspect I would have added items like grizzly bear (like the one shown here in Alaska), lightning bug, showy orchis, Moraine Lake, pika, Grand Tetons, and a number of other things “I have seen.”

Looking at Botts’ list also made me wonder what you, our readers, would place on  such a list.  Rob and I would be interested to know what you have seen that has helped you know that you could trust the Creator.  We encourage you to let us know by leaving us a comment. 

–Chuck Summers

We as people tend to think too much. I know I do and most of my friends and family do, too. On the one hand, this is a good thing as we can think things through carefully so we do the right things. On the other hand, thinking too much can be limiting and get in the way of our doing anything, let alone the right thing!

Especially when we worry. As Jesus says in Matthew 6:27-28, “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.”

Sometimes I find it refreshing to mediate on something in nature, especially flowers. I find that when I am photographing up close, when a flower fills my viewfinder, I am focused on more than a photograph. I am focused on beauty, on a wonder in God’s world, and I don’t think about too much else. The photo here is of a prickly phlox flower,  a plant of the chaparral of Southern California.

It is a small plant with beautiful flowers. Like all flowers, it doesn’t worry about being anything other than itself. This particular flower is jeweled with morning dew. It doesn’t have to “do” anything or worry about life or anything else. It simply is.

I find I am at my best when I simply “am”, accepting what and who I am as God has given me life. Oh, I know how easy it is to want to be or do something else, or I think I must accomplish something in order to feel good complete, but that tends to create anxiety and unease in my head. I really do have to remember things like flowers and the fact that they “accept” where they are at and can only be what they are. A prickly phlox cannot be anything else and there is nothing wrong with that. I really cannot add a single hour to my life by worrying about things that are not happening or going the way “I” think they should.

– Rob Sheppard

This morning at church we sang the hymn “This Is My Father’s World.”  Being Father’s Day, it seemed an appropriate choice.  This particular hymn has been a favorite of mine for a long time but as we sang the song I noticed that the words in the Chalice Hymnal were different from the ones I grew up singing.  The first two verses were the same:

“This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears, all nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.  This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought of rocks and trees, of skies and seas; His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise, the morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.  This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair; in the rustling grass I hear Him pass; He speaks to me everywhere.”

The third verse started with words I was familiar with, “This is my Father’s world.  Oh, let me ne’er forget that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.”  After this came the new words: “God trusts us with the world to keep it clean and fair, all earth and trees, the skies and seas, God’s creatures everywhere.”

Some research done this afternoon reveals that these last words were not part of the original hymn.  Still, I’m glad they somehow found their way into our hymnal.  Here we find an important reminder that having been blessed with a beautiful and marvelous world by our heavenly Father, we are now entrusted by Him to “keep it clean and fair.”  We need such reminders for if we do not keep the world clean and fair our ability to see and hear God “everywhere” will be hindered. It will also influence how future generations will be able to experience God in Creation.

On a day set aside to honor our earthly fathers, let’s pause to remember that one way we can honor our heavenly Father is by caring for and protecting His Creation.

–Chuck Summers

(The picture of “morning light” that appears above was taken recently at Pine Mountain State Park in Kentucky.)

Greetings from Camp E.D.G.E.!  Camp E.D.G.E. is the theme for this year’s Vacation Bible School at the church where I serve.  The kids are having a wonderful time and learning some very important lessons.  The “E.D.G.E.” in Camp E.D.G.E. stands for “Experience and Discover God Everywhere.”  One of the truths that the children have learned is that God can be experienced and discovered in His Creation.  I’m thrilled that the kids have been taught this.  I don’t remember being taught this truth in the church where I grew up.  It is not, however, a new idea.  Many of the biblical writers imply this very idea.  Likewise, throughout Christian history various theologians have made reference to the “two books of revelation”—the Bible and Creation.  In the end, however, Jesus may be our best teacher when it comes to seeing God everywhere. 

In his book, We Have Seen the Lord, William Barclay writes: “To Jesus the whole world was full of signs; the corn in the field, the leaven in the loaf, the scarlet anemones on the hillside all spoke to him of God.  He did not think that God had to break in from the outside world; he knew that God was already in the world for anyone who had eyes to see.  The sign of truly religious persons is not that they come to Church to find God but that they find God everywhere; not that they make a great deal of sacred places but that they sanctify common places.”

There have been a lot of places in nature where I have definitely experienced and discovered God.  One such place is Camp Denali in Denali National Park (pictured above).   Beholding such awesome beauty as that found in Alaska, it would be hard to not see God.  The challenge for me is to find Him in the not so obvious places.  At Camp E.D.G.E. it’s not just the kids who have been learning.  So have I.

–Chuck Summers