Go outside and play. Now!
Nature speaks universally to the human spirit at all stages of life. Children seem especially attuned to its rhythms.
Roly Polies live under rocks. My grandson knows this. He leaves no stone unturned in search of armadillidium vulgare, also known as Pill Bugs, which roll up in a ball when bothered. Thus Roly Polies.
Last fall, he spent the afternoon sitting under an oak tree in the park, pulling the caps off of acorns. He loves going to his momma’s garden to pick cherry tomatoes and sometimes berries. He loves to run across the lawn and roll in the grass with his dog. Having discovered it, he can’t get enough of being out in nature.
Go outside and play. NOW! - Quote from my mother circa 1969
Nature speaks universally to the human spirit at all stages of life. Children seem especially attuned to its rhythms. Children’s curriculum in church’s teach lessons about God through nature. My grandfather taught children’s Sunday School at the little village church near his farm. I have the vaguest memories of him taking me by the hand and leading me through the yard, the garden, and the barnyard at the farm where my grandparents lived. Did he teach me that blossoming flowers bursting with color, blue and white dappled skies and spring showers pattering on rooftops reminds us of God’s love for all creation? Did he show me the hens roosting and the piglets nursing or point to the barn swallows diving through the dusky barnyard light and say God takes care of His creatures? Did he and my other teachers show me how to see God through nature? Yes. I learned these things early in life and it stays with me.
As a pastor, I never resented the men who told me they didn’t attend my church because they felt closer to God on the lake or in a duck blind or deer stand. I think they were telling the truth.
My grandson is teaching me. You don’t have to go to the farthest mountain top or wilderness. You can go into your own backyard. You can visit the park. You can step out your front door, feel the sunshine on your face and breathe the air.
Now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wild. - Luke 4:1 The Message
Jesus connected with God in nature. Jesus spent his ministry outdoors, beside the lakes and along the roads. He often visited people’s homes for dinner parties that took place on rooftops or in courtyards and other open spaces in nature. He retreated to the desert wilderness to flee the distractions of the every day and other people to be alone with God in nature. Jesus struggled with God while visiting the wilderness early in his ministry when he set aside time, 40 days in all, to focus on what God was calling him to do. He may have been apart from other people, but he would have been surrounded by God’s desert creatures and he would have experienced the heightened elements under the hot desert sun contrasting with the cold midnight air. Led by the Spirit into the wild, Jesus confronted the devil as he traversed the desert landscape gaining strength as the days stretched into weeks, hungry to launch into his ministry powerful in the Spirit.
For many people, the desert is a place to avoid, a place of banishment or grief, or simply useless and vacant. In English, when we say that a place is “deserted,” we usually mean that we find nothing significant there. But the Arabic verb ashara means to enter the desert willingly, for there, according to The Sacred Desert by David Jasper, “If one knows where to look, there are springs and wells of water and places of life.” That’s why Isaiah 35:1 so aptly describes the heart of the universal desert experience: The desert and the dry land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Daily Meditations. April 24, 2024. CAC.
It’s funny how as adults - just like we did as kids - we have to be reminded to go outside and play. We spent time this past week with my grandson looking under the rocks to see what other creatures make their homes there. We watched a bird’s nest with baby Robins we found in a bush in the yard. And I recalled, deep in my being, lessons about seeing God in nature.
Beautiful reminders of how nature can draw us closer tonGod if we let it. Thank you.