The Book of Nature

The more we tune in to the world around us, the more we see the life cycle of birth, death, and renewed life. Nature can help us to become aware of the smaller deaths and rebirths that are part of our own experience.

I connect with that cycle in my gardening. I have a pollinator garden where I grow native plants that attract all sorts of pollinators–bees, insects, butterflies, small birds. It’s one of the ways I find God in nature as well as make my small contribution to the health of the earth.

We are all a part of nature, and we experience the same rhythms in our own life as we find in the natural world–God’s way of telling us that creation is one. We experience the Creator in creation itself.

This idea is not new. Barbara Mahany, in her excellent book, titled, “The Book of Nature: the Astonishing Beauty of God’s First Sacred Text,” relates with references going back to third century monastics, how many people have spoken of two sources of divine revelation. As St. Thomas Aquinas put it, “Sacred writings are bound in two volumes–that of creation and that of Holy Scripture.” I enjoy exploring both those volumes.

“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” (Romans 6:5)

The images in today’s post are from Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester, MA.