A rainy morning such as this one, especially when rain has
been so precious and rare, reminds us to look out of the window. It reminds us that we are not after all
creatures of the indoors however much the peril of winter temperature and icy
wind might keep us inside. We belong to
God’s nature and not man’s constructions.
Henry Beston spent a year living on Cape Cod and observing
nature from his small home. He paid
special attention to the wildlife. He
watched the fish and the birds and saw the cyclical nature of the land and
sea. He wrote: “We need another and a
wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by
complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the
glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image
in distortion. We patronize them for
their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below
ourselves. And therein we err, and
greatly err. For the animal shall not be
measured by man. In a world older and
more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions
of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never
hear. They are not brethren, they are
not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of
life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.”
If it is true that we need a more mystical concept of
animals and nature, then I think it is perhaps even more true that we need a
more mystical concept of ourselves. If
birds and fishes can remind us of the power and majesty and completeness of
God’s creation, then surely looking upon our brothers and sisters in the human
race should also inspire us to praise God.
For though we might be tainted by sin and though we might live farther
from nature, we are from the same ancient and beautiful place from which
springs all of nature. We are from the
creating hands of God. When we look to
the beauty of the outside world we are reminded of the beauty that we all carry
within ourselves; the indelible mark of our creator who has made us in his
image.
On this day when mother nature refuses to let her beauty be
ignored, let us remember that everyone with whom we will speak was made by a
loving God. We are all caught up
together in the splendor and travail of the Earth along with every living
creature, and we praise God that it is so.
