I’m sure you’ve been mesmerized as I have been by the perfect butterfly, the perfect sunset, the perfect mountain lake, the perfect tree, or the perfect flower. The beauty of nature’s perfection sometimes grips my soul to the extent that I shed tears.
George MacDonald, the Nineteenth Century writer and scholar who inspired C. S. Lewis apparently shared my feeling:
[Flowers] come from the same Heart as man himself, and are sent to be His companions and ministers. There is something divinely magical, because profoundly human, in them. Our feeling for many of them doubtless comes from certain associations of childhood. But how did they get hold of us even in childhood? Why do they enter our souls at all?
It is because the flowers are joyous, inarticulate children, come with vague messages from the Father of all. If I confess that what they say to me sometimes makes me weep, how can I call my feeling for them anything but love?
Even sometimes stern Martin Luther was impressed by the implication of nature’s perfection:
God writes the Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
The psalmist in the great meditative hymn Psalm 119 reflects further on the source and perfection of the natural world:
Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures. Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you. . . . To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless (119:89-91, 96).
There are a couple statements in that Psalm that are astounding to me: That all things serve the Creator. When we stand amazed in the presence of natural beauty, if our souls are attuned to the Great Soul, we will
see that these glories are made more beautiful in that they are serving the Creator by doing the work He made them for. That’s one reason we should not trash His creation.
But consider this even more remarkable truth: The writer of the psalm says he sees a limit to perfection! How can there be a limit to perfection? The answer is in the next phrase: “[The Lord's] commands are boundless.” The implication is that the Creator delights to take us from perfections we’re familiar with to never ending new “perfections.” Our creativeness is limited. His is not.
What joy there will be in the coming restoration of all things after the purging of the earth. We will never cease to be amazed at God’s handiwork. What we see today is only a foretaste of what’s to come. Wow!
See you outdoors!
Dean
[Go to Flickr's "Flower Lovers" group for an overwhelming parade of floral wonders ---over 123,000 photos!]
October 5th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
The only rebellion I find in creation is that of man (me, especially). All other created things perfectly follow their prescribed duties, all in perfect obedience to their creator. They are perfect.
I wonder just how the stones would obey Jesus in Luke 19:40 where if the disciples were silent Jesus said the stones would cry out. One thing for sure, they would obey, they always do. Maybe one day we’ll find out.
Creation could teach us a lot if we would just listen and observe. We still have this mentality that since we are the crowning achievement of creation, we are not going to belittle ourselves to learn from rocks, trees, butterflies, or any lesser being than ourselves. What we really are saying is “I won’t learn from God!” But as the PBS program reminded us, we can all be taught in and by the wilderness. Sure wish I was more sensitive to these things.
Bob
October 7th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
There is a neat little signature of the creator found in nature called a whorl. It is that spirial seen in plankton, mulusks,seashells,snails,sunflowers and at the largest level in the spiral galaxies.
The ever expanding spirial has the exact same ratio of expansion in all of the above mentioned items of nature.
Coincidence? Or the sign of a creator?
Steve