Seeing Creation

Many years ago while in seminary I took a class called The Classics of Christian Devotion.  It turned out to be one of my favorite classes of my entire graduate school experience.  Over the course of the semester the professor, Glenn Hinson, introduced us to many of the true “classics” of Christian literature.  We read and studied works by people like Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Thomas a’ Kempis, William Law, John Bunyan, Thomas Merton and Thomas Kelly.  One of the books that inspired me the most was Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the presence of God.  Brother Lawrence was a seventeenth century monk who earnestly desired an intimate relationship with God and developed a method whereby he disciplined himself to “practice” being aware of God’s presence every possible moment.  He said this eventually enabled him to feel God’s presence just as keenly while he was washing dishes in the monastery as when he shared Holy Communion.

Earlier today I learned something I did not know about Brother Lawrence.  My friend Michael Boone shared on his Facebook page “R120” a passage from the book 131 Christians Everyone Should Know that tells how a tree played an instrumental role in Brother Lawrence’s spiritual development:  “In the deep of winter, Herman (his name before he was a monk) looked at a barren tree, stripped of leaves and fruit, waiting silently and patiently for the sure hope of summer abundance. Gazing at the tree, Herman grasped for the first time the extravagance of God’s grace and the unfailing sovereignty of divine providence. Like the tree, he himself was seemingly dead, but God had life waiting for him, and the turn of seasons would bring fullness. At that moment, he said, that leafless tree ‘first flashed in upon my soul the fact of God,’ and a love for God that never after ceased to burn.”

I find this to be a fascinating story and also yet one more reminder of how Creation serves as God’s “other Book.”  From the very beginning God has used the world of nature to speak to us.  Creation has many divine lessons to teach us but in order for us to learn these lessons we have to be open to instruction and also careful observers of God’s handiwork.

It is interesting that Brother Lawrence’s experience occurred in “the deep of winter.”  We are in that season now.  As you look around you this time of year what do you see in the natural world that might be offering you divine lessons?  The lesson Brother Lawrence received was a great one indeed but there are many others just as wonderful waiting to be discovered by those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.  We would all be wise to start paying more attention.

–Chuck

(I took the top image in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the middle image at the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, and the bottom image at John James Audubon State Park.)

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”  Matthew 5:8

If you want to get a photographer’s attention, just mention the word “pixel.”  Pixels are what make up the pictures we take in the digital age.  A pixel is actually quite small which is why you hear people talk about megapixels.   Every digital photograph taken these days is made up of thousands and thousands of pixels. A single pixel will not capture an image but that does not mean that each pixel is not important or doesn’t play a role in the overall picture.  Why am I talking about that here?  There’s a reason.

A few days ago I had the chance to hear William Paul Young speak at the University of Pikeville.  Young is the author of The Shack, a story he originally wrote for his kids alone but that has gone on to sell 19 million copies worldwide.  In the midst of his presentation Thursday night he said something to the effect that “we are all one pixel that makes up the picture that is the face of God.”  Being a photographer, when Young used the word pixel it certainly did get my attention.  He was speaking my language.  By what he said, however, he did more than get my attention, the idea also captured my imagination.  I love the thought that you and I are one pixel that helps make up the picture of the face of God.  It is a reminder that every one of us is important and plays a vital role in the revelation of God.  You need me to fully understand what God looks like and I need you.  We even need those folks that we don’t like, or who may not look or think like us, to get the complete picture.

I think I would add to Young’s statement that everything that God has made should also be seen as “one pixel” that helps us see more clearly the face of God.  In doing so I’d hardly be the first person to suggest this.  Writing long ago Thomas Aquinas said, “No one species can attain to the likeness of God.  Neither can any single creature express the full likeness of God because it cannot be equal to God.  The presence of multiplicity and variety among created things was therefore necessary in order that a perfect likeness to God be found in them according to their manner of being.”  In The Imitation of Christ Thomas a’ Kempis echoes this thought: “If thy heart were right, then every creature would be a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine.  There is no creature so small and abject, but it reflects the goodness of God.”

The Scriptures affirm that God is the Creator of all that exists.  Everything God has made is a work of art that bears His soul and reveals something about Him.  As Thomas a Kempis suggests, if our hearts were right we would recognize this and in the process we would come to see a much clearer picture of the face of God.  We would also come to realize that all that God has made is important and plays a vital role in Creation.  Yes, everything God has made is there for a reason.  We may not understand exactly what that reason is but that gives us no right to dismiss or minimize its importance.  If nothing else it is there to show us a clearer picture of the face of God.  To me that is reason enough to respect and appreciate all that God has made.  To get the clearest picture of God’s face we can we are going to need all the pixels we can get and that includes yours and mine.

–Chuck

(I took the image of Sandhill Cranes in flight in New Mexico, the pika in Alberta, Canada, and the banana slug in California.)

When I was much younger I remember there being a song by Jim Stafford in which he declared “I don’t like spiders and snakes…”  I have a feeling that there are many who feel the same way about these creatures.  For some reason a lot of people hate spiders and snakes.   I will confess that at one time I did too.  I disliked them because I was afraid of them.  Part of this fear was instilled in me by others while I was a child.  Watching horror movies that featured spiders and snakes probably didn’t help either.  I suspect the biggest reason I feared and disliked them was I did not understand them.

In Rob’s last blog on this site he wrote about Death Valley’s pup fish and noted that they are good and valuable, if for no other reason, because God made them and declared them to be good.  The same thing can be said for spiders and snakes, along with any other creature we may deem detestable or unlikeable.  Every creature that exists on the earth is here because the Creator chose to make it.  From this truth we can discern that every creature that exists also has a purpose.  If we would only take the time to learn about those creatures we don’t like we would discover that each one has a beneficial role to play in their respective ecosystem.   We might also be forced to admit they are beneficial to us.

It would help all of us to remember that everything that God has created manifests His glory.  I have been reading a lot lately about Celtic Spirituality.  Last night I came across a Celtic hymn in Carmina Gadelica that included these words: “There is no plant in the ground but is full of His virtue; there is no form in the strand but is full of His blessing.  Jesu!  Jesu!  Jesu!  Jesu! Meet it were to praise Him.  There is no life in the sea; there is no creature in the river, there is naught in the firmament, but proclaims His goodness.  Jesu!  Jesu!  Jesu!  Jesu! Meet it were to praise Him.  There is no bird in the wing, there is no star in the sky, there is nothing beneath the sun, but proclaims His goodness.  Jesu!  Jesu!  Jesu!  Jesu!  Meet it were to praise Him.”

Each of our lives would be enriched if we could come to recognize that everything God made, including spiders and snakes, proclaims His goodness and can lead us to offer praise to Jesus.  With that in mind, I encourage you to pray the prayer Thomas a’Kempis prayed long ago: “Lord God, make my heart straight in your sight, so that every creature will be to me a mirror of life, and a book of holy doctrine, for there is no creature so small or insignificant that it does not show forth and represent the goodness of God.”

–Chuck

(I took the spider, snake and wasp images shown above last week in Big Bend National Park.)

In his book, Rumors of Another World, Philip Yancey speaks of having undergone two conversions: “first from the natural world to discover the supernatural, and later to rediscover the natural world from a new viewpoint.”  The second conversion led him to try to make daily life sacramental.  This means attempting to see God in the world around us each day.

Yancey says, “Every day, every hour, every moment, I must exercise my calling to hallow God’s creation, whether it be leatherback turtles in Costa Rica or the irritating kid next door who peppers my yard with golf balls.  Holy sparks are potentially trapped in every moment of my day, and as God’s agent I am called to release them.”

I think a lot of us are in need of the second conversion Yancey speaks of.  We need to understand that the world God has created is indeed sacred.  Likewise, we need to grasp that God uses what He has made to reveal Himself to us.  There are lots and lots of “holy sparks” waiting to be released.  But before they can be released we must recognize that they are there and look for them.  In The Imitation of Christ Thomas a Kempis wrote, “If your heart were right, then every created thing would be a mirror of life, and a book of sacred doctrine.  There is no creature so small and worthless that it does not show forth the goodness of God.”

Yancey also speaks of another effect of his second conversion.  He says, “If I take seriously the sacred origin of this world, at the very least I must learn to treat it as God’s work of art, something that gave God enormous pleasure.”  Normally we treat works of art with great care.  Apparently many  today fail to see Creation as a work of art.  This is evidenced by the destruction of the planet’s rain forests, the pollution of streams and rivers, the careless elimination of animal species, and a host of other environmental degradations.  God’s incredible work of art deserves far better care than it has received!

Throughout Christian history there have been a number of “great revivals” or spiritual awakenings where thousands of people experienced the first conversion Yancey spoke of.  Perhaps what we need now is a great revival where people will experience the second conversion.  I pray that revival comes.

–Chuck

(The image above was taken at Craggy Gardens on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.)