As I have noted numerous times in the past, seeing God in Creation does not necessarily come easy for most people. A group of individuals might walk the same trail and see the same things but that does not mean that all of them, or any, will experience or see God. I am convinced that there has to be both an openness and desire to see God in Creation for this to happen on a regular basis. Likewise, I am confident that there is no better way to prepare oneself to see or experience God in nature than prayer. With this in mind, I’d like to commend to you a prayer I discovered in John Baillie’s little book, A Diary of Private Prayer. It reads:
“Creator Spirit, who broodest everlastingly over the lands and waters of the earth, enduing them with forms and colors which no human skill can copy, give me today, I beseech Thee, the mind and heart to rejoice in Thy creation. Forbid that I should walk through Thy beautiful world with unseeing eyes: Forbid that the lure of the market-place should ever entirely steal my heart away from the love of the open acres and the green trees: Forbid that under the low roof of workshop or office or study I should ever forget Thy great overarching sky: Forbid that when all Thy creatures are greeting the morning with songs and shouts of joy, I alone should wear a dull and sullen face: Let the energy and vigor which in Thy wisdom Thou has infused into every living thing stir today within my being, that I may not be among Thy creatures as a sluggard and a drone: And above all give me grace to use these beauties of earth without me and this eager stirring of life within me as a means whereby my soul may rise from creature to Creator, and from nature to nature’s God.”
I cannot help but believe that if we offered a prayer such as this on a regular basis it would be of great benefit to us. The Bible would seem to affirm this. In the Book of James we read “You do not have, because you do not ask God.” (4:2) Also, Jesus taught, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)
I encourage all those wanting to see and experience God in Creation to remember the importance of prayer in this endeavor. All my life I have heard people say, “prayer changes things.” This is no doubt true; it even changes how we see or experience God in nature.
–Chuck
*This post originally appeared September 19, 2012.
I recently came upon a prayer found in the Book of Common Prayer that should be of interest to those who are concerned about being good stewards of Creation. It is a short prayer that might be said on a regular basis. It reads, “Almighty God, in giving us dominion over things on earth, you made us fellowship workers in your creation. Give us wisdom and reverence so to use the resources of nature, that no one may suffer from our abuse of them, and that generations yet to come may continue to praise you for your bounty, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
There are several things I like about this prayer. One of the great things about it is that it reminds us of the true meaning of the word “dominion.” The biblical call found in Genesis 1:28 for humans to have dominion over the earth has certainly been misunderstood by many over the centuries. This misunderstanding has led to the horrible abuse of God’s Creation in a lot of instances. In this prayer we catch a glimpse of the true meaning of dominion; it involves our being “fellowship workers” in God’s Creation. Our calling is to work with and in Creation for its good. When we do this together the world becomes a better place for us and for those who will come after us.
Another thing I like about this prayer is the recognition that we need “wisdom and reverence” to do what we are supposed to do. We need wisdom because it is not always clear exactly what we should do or how. We are called to be caretakers of God’s Creation but at times we must seek the Creator’s help in knowing how best to take care of what He has made. We must also do our work with an attitude of reverence. We revere the One who has called us to serve in His Garden and we must also show reverence for the work of God’s hands. If we fail to do either of these things we will likely be unsuccessful in our fundamental calling to tend to the earth. Reverence for both God and Creation are essential. This prayer helps us to remember this.
Finally, I like this prayer because it serves as a reminder that our actions have consequences. If we do not seek God’s wisdom and live in reverence of the Creator and the Creation we may very well abuse the earth’s resources. We will be more likely to cause harm where we are supposed to bring help and healing. This abuse and harm, as we have clearly learned, comes back to bite us. The earth alone does not suffer when we abuse it, so do we. Furthermore, it is not just we who live today that are affected by this abuse but also those who shall follow us. As “fellowship workers” we have to be concerned about more than just ourselves. We must tend to the earth in such a way that there will be plenty of resources left for the generations yet to come–resources that will not only sustain and nurture them but lead them to worship and praise the Giver of all good gifts.
For a short prayer this gem from the Book of Common Prayer has a lot of important reminders for us. For that reason I encourage you to remember it and to use it on a regular basis as part of your prayer regimen. It can’t hurt and it has the potential to do a world of good.
This past Sunday I was asked to share an Earth Day prayer during the zoom worship service of the Nicholasville Christian Church. Today I want to share that same prayer with you:
Almighty God, as we observe Earth Day once again this year we pause to acknowledge you as the Maker of heaven and earth. We celebrate both the beauty and the goodness of all that you have made. Everywhere we go, everywhere we look, we see the beauty of your creation. We see it right now in the budding trees, the blooming flowers, the clouds in the sky, the colorful birds you send to brighten our days. We see so much beauty in the mountains, the ocean, the forests, the plains, and even the deserts you have made. All this beauty is but a dim reflection of your own beauty. Thank you, God, for giving us a chance to see such beauty and may we be careful not to miss what is there to see.
Today we likewise affirm the goodness of your creation. You made the world in such a way to meet our needs. You gave us air to breathe, water to drink, food to sustain us, and companions to share our journey. When you finished your work you declared that it was very good. Today we make that same affirmation and offer you our praise and thanksgiving for the goodness of the earth.
With the Psalmist we also affirm that the heavens continue to declare your glory. That you have given us your creation as a second book by which we might come to know and understand you better. Please give us eyes to see and ears to hear what you desire to show us in the world around us.
Lord, on this special day we are reminded that we are a part of your creation and that you have given us the responsibility to be good stewards of the earth. Unfortunately, we have not been very good stewards. Today your creation suffers. We have polluted the water and air you provided to sustain us. We have destroyed many of the resources you gave us to nurture us. Our wanton ways have led to a reduction of needed forests and mountains. We have even eliminated many species you created in your love and wisdom. More and more we see that we are paying the price for our sins. Disease, climate change, droughts, fires, devastating storms can all be traced back to our recklessness. God, have mercy on us.
Please forgive us for not being more faithful stewards and help us to start doing a better job. May we never forget that the earth belongs to you and that we have a responsibility to do all we can to preserve and protect your good earth. May we realize that in caring for the earth we show our love both for you and others, even for those yet to be born.
In the end we pray with Jesus that your will might be done on earth just as it is done in heaven. It is in his name we offer this prayer. Amen.
I recently started reading John O’Donohue’s book, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World. In the opening chapter I found some words about landscape that resonated with me. I suspect they will with many of you as well. O’Donohue writes: “I love mountains. I feel that mountains are huge contemplatives. They are there and they are in the presence up to their necks and they are still in it and with it and within it. One of the lovely ways to pray is to take your body out into a landscape and to be still in it. Your body is made out of clay, so your body is actually a miniature landscape that has got up from under the earth and is now walking on the normal landscape. If you go out for several hours into a place that is wild, your mind begins to slow down, down, down. What is happening is that the clay of your body is retrieving its own sense of sisterhood with the great clay of the landscape. Water in a landscape is a fascinating thing as well. I often think that water is the tears of the earth’s joy and sadness. Every kind of water in a landscape has a different kind of tonality and a different kind of presence to it… I also think that trees are incredible presences. There is incredible symmetry in a tree, between its inner life and its outer life, between its rooted memory and its external active presence. A tree grows up and down at once and produces enough branches to incarnate wild divinity. It doesn’t limit itself—it reaches for the sky and it reaches for the source, all in one seamless kind of movement. So I think landscape is an incredible, mystical teacher, and when you begin to tune into its sacred presence, something shifts inside you.”
O’Donohue goes on to say, “One of the lovely developments in consciousness…is this dawning recognition that we are guests of the universe, and that landscape was the firstborn of creation and was here hundreds of millions of years before us. It knows what is actually going on. To put it in a theological way, I feel that landscape is always at prayer, and its prayer is seamless. It is always enfolded in the presence. It is a high work of imagination, because there is no repetition in a landscape. Every stone, every tree, every field is a different place. When your eye begins to become attentive to this panorama of differentiation, then you realize what a privilege it is to actually be here.”
I appreciate what O’Donohue has to say and can relate to it. I believe God does make Himself known through the Creation. All of God’s works bear the mark of the Creator. This includes the landscape. This helps explain why many of us find ourselves closest to God in nature. It also explains why prayer seems to come easier for us when we are out in nature. Is it too much to believe that rest of Creation prays alongside us and contributes to our prayer? O’Donohue specifically mentions mountains, water and trees as elements of the landscape that draw him to the presence of God. These three elements have contributed much to my own experience of God as well. I don’t think that is a coincidence. In the Scriptures God is often found in mountains, water and trees.
If only we had eyes to see we would discover God all around us, in all the different parts of the landscape. And O’Donohue is right, “when your eye begins to become attentive to this panorama of differentiation, then you realize what a privilege it is actually to be here.” What a privilege indeed!
–Chuck
(I took the images shown above on a recent trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.)
I’ve recently come across two quotations from a couple of my favorite spiritual writers—C. S. Lewis and Thomas Merton. The subject matter is amazingly similar. Lewis writes, “We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always hard to penetrate. The real labor is to remember, to attend. In fact, to come awake. Still more, to remain awake.” I’m not sure where all Lewis had in mind as places where we can find God incognito but I have no doubt he would have included nature. The Scriptures are clear that God’s presence can be found in Creation. This, in fact, seems to be one of God’s best hiding places. But for those with eyes to see and ears to hear it is not hard to discover God there. But Lewis is right, the difficult part is remembering to “attend” or pay attention. It takes great discipline to become and “remain awake.”
How, then, can we pay better attention and learn to remain awake? One answer is prayer. Thomas Merton, who I am convinced did a good job of paying attention and remaining awake to God in nature, prayed a prayer that no doubt helped. It reads, “Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.” If we turn to the world in silence and solitude, with a poverty of spirit, it will be impossible not to experience the presence of God. Like C. S. Lewis, Merton believed God could be found everywhere and when one comes to see God in all places and spaces then all the world becomes a prayer.
Merton mentioned the sky, the birds, and the wind in the trees as personal forms of prayers. What parts of nature have become prayers for you?
–Chuck
(I took the pictures shown above on a trip last month to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.)
Recently I had a chance to go to California and spend a week photographing with Rob Sheppard. It turned out to be a marvelous trip. Everywhere we went there seemed to be something special waiting for us to explore and photograph. Numerous times I found myself saying “Wow!” Even more often I would catch myself saying “Thank you!” to God for the blessing of getting to see what I saw. There were several adorable sea otters that we were able to spend time with around Morro Bay. We also had many opportunities to enjoy this year’s super display of wildflowers. At Carrizo Plains National Monument we saw wildflowers flowing across thousands of acres and even into the mountains. It was a marvelous sight to behold. We spent a good bit of time along the central coast of California and the beauty there likewise called for countless expressions of gratitude. I felt incredibly blessed to see all I did.
A few days ago I was looking at a book I own which happens to be a collection of “famous prayers.” I came across one prayer that helped remind me that for those with eyes to see there are always blessings in nature waiting to be seen. The prayer spoke to me and perhaps it will to you as well. It was penned by John Oxenham and is taken from “A Little Te Deum of the Commonplace.”
“For all the first sweet flushings of the spring; The greening earth, the tender heavenly blue; The rich brown furrows gaping for the seed; For all thy grace in bursting bud and leaf… For hedgerows sweet with hawthorn and wild rose; For meadows spread with gold and gemmed with stars, For every tint of every tiniest flower, For every daisy smiling to the sun; For every bird that builds in joyous hope, For every lamb that frisks beside its dam, For every leaf that rustles in the wind, For spring poplar, and for spreading oak, For queenly birch, and lofty swaying elm; For the great cedar’s benedictory grace, For earth’s ten thousand fragrant incenses, Sweet altar-gifts from leaf and fruit and flower… For ripening summer and the harvesting; For all the rich autumnal glories spread—The flaming pageant of the ripening woods, The fiery gorse, the heather-purpled hills, The rustling leaves that fly before the wind and lie below the hedgerows whispering; For meadows silver-white with hoary dew; For sheer delight of tasting once again that first crisp breath, of winter in the air; The pictured pane; the new white world without; The sparkling hedgerows witchery of lace, The soft white flakes that fold the sleeping earth; The cold without, the cheerier warm within… For all the glowing heart of Christmas-tide, We thank thee, Lord!”
Oxenham is right, there is always something in God’s Creation to catch our attention and elicit our praise and thanksgiving. Needless to say, some things catch our eyes or attention quicker than others but if we will really pay attention we will find plenty to give thanks for no matter where we are or what time of the year it happens to be. What are you seeing right now that leads you to offer a prayer of thanksgiving?
–Chuck
(I took the three pictures shown above on my recent trip to California.)
