The impact of creation (or Why I bird watch!)

One of the things in life that is very important to me is nature. I think it is quite obvious from my pictures, bird watching and scuba diving that I love to be outside in nature. But why is that?

For me, nature is the creation of God. I have often said that a sunset is a letter written to us by a loving God. The sun could just set without a fiery display of color but instead it is perhaps the most beautiful thing in the world, visible no matter where on earth you live, even Bellingham on occasion :)

With bird watching, I often go out with a new bird watcher and they are stunned by the number of birds we see. "I never knew there were so many kinds and multi-colored birds before!" they gasp. Ahh, the same is true of God. We often walk through life blissfully unaware of him. Then, after the epiphany, we see him everywhere and gasp, "I never knew that He was always there!"

So for me, to notice and appreciate nature, is to notice and appreciate God. Just as the painting ultimately reaps praise for the artist, so it is with creation. It exists to praise God and so do we, as part of that same creation. One of the interesting things is that all creation naturally praises God, save humans. We were given a choice.

One thing I want to do this year (yes, a New Year's resolution) is to develop a theology of creation beyond "God created the heavens and the earth". We seem to be caught up in just proving the theory of creation when confronted with the theory of evolution. Let us for a moment think beyond this...How does the creation affect my life? Here are my rudimentary thoughts thus far:


1) God created an abundance of life.
Genesis 1:20 And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds* fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.”

2) God put man in charge of his creation.
Genesis 1:28-31 God blessed them and told them, "Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters over the fish and birds and all the animals." And God said, "Look! I have given you the seed-bearing plants throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. And I have given all the grasses and other green plants to the animals and birds for their food." And so it was. Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was excellent in every way. This all happened on the sixth day.

3) The fall (Adam and Eve's sin) cursed not only man but creation as well.
Genesis 3:17 -19 And to Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit I told you not to eat, I have placed a curse on the ground. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. All your life you will sweat to produce food, until your dying day. Then you will return to the ground from which you came. For you were made from dust, and to the dust you will return."

4) The story of Noah and the Ark shows God's desire the man AND creation be preserved.
Genesis 6 18-21 But I solemnly swear to keep you safe in the boat, with your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring a pair of every kind of animal-a male and a female-into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood. Pairs of each kind of bird and each kind of animal, large and small alike, will come to you to be kept alive. And remember, take enough food for your family and for all the animals."

A few years ago I found a poet named Gerard Manley Hopkins who I think was much closer to understanding this concept than I. He wrote:

God’s Grandeur

THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.