Seeing Creation

I have been posting blogs at Seeing Creation for thirteen years.  During that time I have written well over 600 entries related to nature and spirituality.  It has been a labor of love.  But I have a confession to make; in recent months I have found myself struggling to find something new to say.  I started by posting blogs twice a week.  Eventually that changed to once a week.  For quite some time, however, it has been only once a month.  I am frustrated by my inability to come up with new material and have thought about shutting down the Seeing Creation page.  I will probably do that eventually but I thought for a little while I would share with you some of my early posts.  Today I share with you one called “Like a Tree Planted by Water” that was originally posted May 29, 2009.  It was one of my first attempts at blogging. In the coming weeks I will share with you some of my favorites from the past.  I hope you won’t mind.

“He is like a tree planted by streams of water…” (Psalm 1:3)  

I have just returned from a photo trip to California that included stops at Yosemite National Park, Muir Woods, Point Reyes National Seashore and Santa Monica National Recreation Area.  One reason I enjoy visiting other parts of the country is that I get to see trees we do not find here in the southern Appalachians where I live.  Majestic redwoods, ponderosa pines, Pacific dogwoods — even a sequoia planted by John Muir himself–brought great delight to my soul. 

While on this trip I started reading Eugene Peterson’s book, Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer.  Commenting on Psalm 1 he writes,

“Comprehension of the invisible begins in the visible.  Praying to God begins by looking at a tree.  The deepest relationship of which we are capable has its origin in the everyday experience of taking a good look at what is in everybody’s backyard.  We are not launched into the life of prayer by making ourselves more heavenly, but by immersing ourselves in the earthy; not by formulating abstractions such as goodness, beauty, or even God, but by attending to trees and tree toads, mountains and mosquitoes.”  

I think Peterson is on to something here.  Contemplating the natural world can, in fact, move us—even compel us—to pray. Psalm 19 begins with the words, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.”  The same psalm ends with the Psalmist praying “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.”   

I suggest that it’s not just “the heavens” but all of Creation that declares the glory of God and that as we begin “seeing Creation” we will join the Psalmist in offering our prayers to God. 

— Chuck

In recent days I have been reading John Philip Newell’s newest book, Sacred Earth Sacred Soul.  In this excellent work Newell seeks to share “Celtic wisdom for reawakening to what our souls know and healing the world.”  As in a number of his previous books, he focuses on several key figures in Celtic Spirituality.  One of the recurring themes found among many of these figures is the idea that God has given us “two books” of revelation.  I have written numerous times about these two books but would like to share some of Newell’s insights with you from Sacred Earth Sacred Soul. 

In his chapter of John Scotus Eriugena Newell points out that “Eriugena said that the whole of the natural world is like a sacred text—and that includes the creatures and our creatureliness.  ‘All creatures,’ he says, ‘are in humanity as if melted down in a crucible.’  Eriugena teaches that there are two books through which God is speaking.  The first is the small book; physically little, this is the book of Holy Scripture.  The second is the big book, the living text of the universe, which includes the great luminaries of the heavens, the sun, moon, and stars; the earth, sea, and sky; the creatures of all these realms; and the multiplicity of life-forms that grow from the ground.  We need to read both books, he says, the sacred text of scripture and the sacred text of the universe.  If we read only the little book, we will miss the vastness and wildness of the utterance, everything vibrating with the sound of the divine.  If we read only the big book, we are in danger of missing the intimacy of the voice, for the book of scripture calls us to faithfulness in relationship, including faithfulness to strangers, refugees, widows, and the poorest among us.”

Newell also has a chapter on Alexander John Scott’s contribution to Celtic Spirituality.  Like Eriugena, Scott points us to God’s two books. “A person with the Bible in one hand, he said, is not released from the study of God in that other book, the sacred text of the earth and of everything that has being.  We need both.  The awareness of the sacred that we access in nature is not a doctrinal or propositional knowing, said Scott.  It belongs ‘to some deeper part of the human being.’  It is the way lovers know each other, with their whole beings, heart and mind, body and soul, knowing the spiritual in the physical. ‘Forms, colors, motions, sounds’—it is through these that we encounter the presence of the divine, says Scott.  ‘This is the value of the sun, moon and stars, of earth and sea, of trees and flowers, of the bodies of men and women, the looks of human countenances, the tones of human voices.’  It is through these that the divine is made known to us.”

The testimony of Eriugena and Scott, as well as other figures Newell covers in his new book, makes it clear that not only has God given us two books of revelation but that we must be careful to utilize both books.  A similar case can be made from Scripture.  Psalm 19 refers to the two books of revelation and shows that both are important and necessary.  Unfortunately, this teaching is not widely known.  You seldom hear this message preached from pulpits today.  Nonetheless, we must recognize that there are these two book and do our very best to read and study both of them.  Sad to say, some read only the Bible and ignore the other book God has given us.  Just as sad, some read only the book of nature and ignore the Holy Scriptures.  If we are wise we will give careful attention to both of God’s books.  If we truly want to know and experience God, we will do just that.  Are you reading both books?

–Chuck