The Gifts of Creation
Scripture Reading
Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs;
you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.You visit the earth and water it,
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide the people with grain,
for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with richness.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.
Reflection
Today’s passage celebrates the physical and spiritual gifts of creation. Though it mostly emphasizes the bounty of the earth in agricultural terms, it also sings of the intrinsic goodness of creation itself and of the presence of God in the world. The line, “the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,” put me in mind of my favorite spiritual discipline and the way it helps me navigate our present darkness.
I would like to say that I have avoided the news lately but I have not. It is important for me to know what’s happening and to consider my role in the unfolding drama. About once a week, however, I deliberately turn away from news media for a day or so because the onslaught of spectacle and heartbreak and worry threatens to undo my emotional balance. Lies, gaslighting, fearmongering, and outright disinformation blur the lines between truth and falsehood and leave me exhausted and cynical. I ache for clarity but none can be found.
Almost none, anyway. While we human beings muddy the waters of reality for political and personal gain, creation remains, standing ready to speak to those with ears to hear.
Three or four times a week I wake before sunrise and go birding. This activity takes me to parks and nature preserves throughout metro Atlanta and helps me maintain mental, emotional, and spiritual balance. When I enter nature’s quiet places in solitude, it becomes easy to put down my burdens of self-consciousness and worry and fear. It becomes natural to listen to both the outer and inner landscapes. At worst, I am able to hear my own inner dialogue. At best, creation permeates my being so that I become a little more like it: humble, unable to admit lies, and incapable of absurdity.
When I go to the woods and fields and rivers I am not escaping; I am returning to my source and remembering who I am and what the world is. That is, I return to God and remember that I am loved and that the world is a window through which the love of God shines.
When I go birding, when I walk through the hills and pastures and along rivers, I am not walking away from my fears or even solving my problems. These small retreats do not fix me or the world; instead they restore my vision so that I may see with the clarity required to act helpfully and to live purposefully. Put simply, I find God in creation so that I might carry God with me through the dark valleys of political and civic and social and personal unrest, that I might trust this God, and that I might learn to love that God with my whole self.
Exercise
One need not wake at 5:00 AM or learn the difference between northern and Louisiana waterthrushes to be restored by God through creation. You can place flowers on your table, take ten minutes to watch the birds out your window, figure out what kind of butterfly that is in your backyard or learn the name of that tall tree beside your house.
Do something small today that will help you to see creation a little more clearly, and, in so doing, to find God in it.
Paul Wallace, Pastor for Adult Education, First Baptist Church of Decatur