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Learning for Life: Cultivating a Student Spirituality
Re-Creation
Week 4
Dr. Michael Fallon, Chaplain at McMaster University, Hamilton Ontario
4.1 The Gift of Creation
“… and through Him to reconcile to himself all things …” Col. 1:20
It has been my family’s tradition to go for Sunday afternoon walks in the conservation area near our home. In the summer when southern Ontario settles in to one of its heat waves, we go to the valley to experience the pleasure of walking under a cool, canopy of green. The trails climb through a heavily wooded section of the northern Carolinian Forest, cross open meadows and drop down into quiet, stream carved valleys. In the fall we go to enjoy the rich reds and golds of the Sugar Maples. We are there in the winter to see the tree shadows play across the snow, rising and falling with the contours of the terrain. And we are there when the dogtooth lilies, the delicate yellow harbingers of spring come out. There is something about nature that pulls us to the valley. And there is something about being in the valley that draws us out of ourselves. We are not alone in this.
During one of the wilderness trips I lead, I ask the students who accompany me if they have a favorite place they might day dream about, a place that calls to them. Responses vary, but more often than not, these special places are either in the wilderness or in a setting that allows one to respond in someway to what is taking place outside. Curled up reading under a favorite tree on a hot summer afternoon. Swimming in the clear, deep water off the end of the cottage dock, or just sitting in front of a fireplace at home, watching snow flakes fall silently to the ground outside.
Why can nature have such a profound impact on people? Why can sitting beside a bubbling brook or cross-country skiing across a frozen lake, refresh us, heal us and inspire us? For some, such opportunities for contemplation may invite us to reflect on ourselves and God.
At the heart of my devotions, is the belief that as beings created in the image of God we are called to be in covenant with our creator, our fellow creatures and God’s creation. Although this world, is now distorted by sin, we hold that the physical world is intrinsically good, because God created it “very good,” and Christ came to reconcile `all things’ back to himself. As part of His work of re-creation, Christ wants us to enjoy his gift and take the opportunity to recreate ourselves through play and restorative interaction with the natural world.
Prayer: Father, thank you for your great gift of this world. Amen.
Quote: On the earth, from space. “Contemplating it changes a person, because you begin to appreciate God’s creation and discover God’s love.” Astronaut, James Irwin.
4.2 The First Book
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
Psalm 19:1.
Last spring, my wife, Eileen, and I, took a group of students from McMaster to the Faith and Writing Conference at Calvin College. I found the whole experience invigorating. One night, Eileen, a proud alumni took me for a walk across Calvin’s beautiful campus. At one point we noticed that the telescope was protruding from the observatory on top of the Science Building. The building seemed to be locked tight, but after some vigorous knocking someone heard us and let us in and we climbed the stairs to the observatory. Just before we enter the observatory we noticed a Bible passage on the wall, “The Heavens declare the glory of God. “
One of the confessions of the Christian Reformed Church is that we know God in two ways: “first, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since the universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures - great and small, are like letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: his eternal power and his divinity ... Second, He makes Himself more clearly and fully known to us by his Holy and Divine Word. “
We had gone to Calvin to hear authors tell their stories and we did that, we listened to people talk about books, we listen to writers reading from books and when the opportunity presented itself we simply sat and read books.
The most inspiring reading we did that weekend however was done during that hour we spent in the observatory looking at God's book of Natural Revelation. We slowly turned the pages. I gazed at the rings of Saturn. I kept jumping to the good parts. I asked to see Rigel, Betelgeuse and Polaris. That night we spent some time reading some of the more distant chapters of God's book of creation. Despite the uniqueness of that experience, we don't need to go to an observatory to experience beauty and discern God's finger print, we can experience that in our own back yards and I believe, actually `love it more' because it is familiar.
Prayer : Dear Father, thank you for revealing something of yourself through your creation. Help us to grow in our understanding of you and our role in the world. Amen.
Quote: “ Look carefully at it top and bottom, observe it, read it. God did not make letters of ink for you to recognize him in; He set before your eyes all these things he had made. Why look for a louder voice? Heaven and earth cries out to you “God made me.”” St. Augustine
4.3 Every Day Wonder
“ Look at the behemoth, which I made …” Ps. 40:15-24.
There is a saying `familiarity breeds contempt.' Every year I do a wilderness trip up on the northern section of the 800 km long Bruce Trail. While this section is known for its stunning vistas, students have asked “Don’t you get bored, going back to the same place?” At first, I did not know how to respond to that question and found myself repeating “it’s the people that make the trip for me.” That is of course true, but there is more to it than that. I have discovered that the more familiar I was with a place, the more I appreciated it and enjoyed sharing it. Reformed spirituality has a counter-cultural edge. It is a spirituality that focuses on doing every day activities to God’s glory. We need to see God not only in the big things, but in the little things we encounter everyday.
When you were a child, did you spend time lying in the grass mesmerized by the bugs around you? Did you keep tadpoles in a fish bowel and watch with awe as they turned into little frogs? Do you remember the wonder you felt when that caterpillar you kept in a jar emerged from his cocoon as a beautiful butterfly? Did you pick bouquets of wild flowers and bring them to your mom. Do you remember working in the garden, planting and harvesting with your parents for the first time? When you are a child these are epic experiences in your life. As adults we need to recapture that sense of wonder. One way to do this would be for us all to become amateur naturalists. It is important that we get to know our own environments an intimate way.
There is something special about being able to anticipate where the snow drops and the crocuses are going to push up through the last snow of the spring. Or when the trilliums are going to open or wonder and discuss if the swallows that last year nested above the garage door will return to re-build their nest and raise a new brood.
This is an intimacy and understanding that only comes with experience. We need to understand this as a long term process of learning to appreciate, of learning to value, of learning to don the mantle of steward and become comfortable with the fit.
4.4 Paradise: Not Lost
“The whole creation has been groaning, for release from its bondage to decay.” Romans 8:21-22
Every fall, I take students backpacking along the northwest shore of Georgian Bay. At that time of the year the trees are just beginning to come into their most vibrant colors. On our trip this past fall, the water was as calm as glass on the first day, but the weather turned and on the last night, a vicious storm came through. In the morning we were all a little wet, but we still enjoyed the sight of the white-capped waves out on the bay. The trail however was slippery and dangerous. As we neared our jumping off point, our students encountered some rangers carrying a body bag. A tragic misadventure had taken place in the back country.
Cornelius Plantinga has noted that we sometimes sing: “This is my father’s world and to my listening ears all nature sings as around me rings the music of the spheres. This is my father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair; in rustling grass I hear him pass - he speaks to me everywhere.”
A beautiful hymn, but as has been observed - it only gives us half the picture, only paradise and not paradise lost. “Creation,” notes Plantinga, “speaks out of both sides of its mouth now. It both sings and rings but it also groans.”
Creation still declares the glory of God, and we can still enjoy it, but the reality is, we live in a fallen, sometimes dangerous world that won’t be totally re-created until Christ returns. And while creation can shape us, we also have the power to shape it. In principle, Reformed Christianity is environmentally responsible. We place a great deal of weight on the call to stewardship, recognizing that we don’t own this world – it is God’s.
The question is, why don’t we always live up to this calling?
Abraham Kuyper talked about the antithesis – the battle ground between the Kingdom of God and the realm of sin that cuts through each of us. This fallen part of our nature makes us seek to fill our own desires regardless of who, or what, might suffer. So, when we ponder the world and the beautiful vistas we are blessed with seeing, let us also consider the images brought about by the degradations we humans have wrought upon the earth and reflect on our collective and individual callings as Christ’s hands of re-creation.
Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to cultivate a stewardly consciousness for your great gift. Amen.
Quote: “In front of the majesty of mountains we are we are pushed to establish a more respectful relationship with nature …and to meditate upon the gravity of so many desecrations, often carried out with inadmissible nonchalance.” John Paul II
4. 5 Good and Faithful Stewardship
“For the Kingdom of God is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them ….”
Recently I talked with a group of university students that had been cleaning a small stream. They had put in time, hauling old tires, pop cans, and other junk out of the bed of this stream and from along its banks. A couple of the students shared that they had been involved in a similar stream rejuvenation project a few years earlier and that marine life of varying sorts had now returned to that stream. To the amazement of many, certain species of fish had once again appeared in that stream and had begun visiting gravel spawning beds that had not been utilized in decades.
I listened very closely to those students. What I noticed was that while they were busy trying to transform the streams, to bring them back to an earlier pristine state, they themselves were being transformed in their own right. Clearly they had received some physical benefits from working out doors, but there was also a heart benefit evident in how they spoke of their project. While they didn’t necessarily know how to articulate it, their actions were God honoring and that resonated deeply within them.
I find this kind of activity reveals how the antithesis runs through our being. On the one hand, we want things whether we need them or not, but on the other, when we are engaged in environmentally friendly activities - it just feels right.
Let me suggest that one way to look at creation would be in light of the parable of the talents. To paraphrase what takes place – when the master returns, the first two servants returned double what they had received while the third servant returned just what he was given – no more. Whereas the first two servants are greeted with “well done good and faithful servant, the third was cast into the outer darkness where there was a weeping and gnashing of teeth.
A Reformed understanding of this text would mean that not only are we are to take care of what God has given us and nurture it. We are mandated to re-create what we have been entrusted with, to make it even more beautiful, more reflective of our Creator God than it was when we received it. The feeling of being involved in such a kingdom restorative activity, a sense of putting oneself in alignment with a creational norm - is like a cool drink for a thirsty soul.
Prayer: Dear Lord, put upon our hearts a Kingdom building activity, and give us the wisdom we need to work in that area. Amen.
Quote: “Our worship of God and our just stewardship go hand in hand. Worship of the market and consumerism are compatible with each other, but worship of God and consumerism are not.” Calvin B DeWitt.
4.6 Life Lessons
“Listen and hear my voice, pay attention to what I say, when a farmer plows for planting …” Isaiah 28:23-29
Isaiah tells us that if we want to know how to farm wisely we need to look to the land, to listen to what God is telling us through the response of nature. This understanding opens a world for us. We become wise not only through the study of scripture, but by being sensitive to the ways of God’s creation. I believe that the wilderness tests us and teaches us in a similar way.
I use my wilderness trips as a component of my Reformed Leadership Initiative program. The outdoors is a wonderful classroom. It can be a microcosm of life where good and bad decisions have very real, and in some cases immediate impact. On an expedition my students have an opportunity to join me in creating an atmosphere of trust and openness. I find the outdoors to be a powerful place to bond, deepen relationships and where the spirit is working - shape hearts toward Christ. Let me just share a few other thoughts I have about how our interacting with nature can help re-create us. People who spend time outdoors, involved with nature become watchful of their surroundings, of the weather, of changes in conditions. You observe, you become patient, you begin to understand.
The wilderness can teach us humility. We test ourselves in climbing, or paddling or hiking. We feel experienced, strong but when the wave’s pick-up on the lake or you get stuck on the side of a mountain in a storm. You quickly recognize your vulnerability and limits. You are not in control. Humbled, you are happy to arrive at camp safely.
The wilderness teaches us responsibility toward other living creatures. In our increasingly urban world, I meet students who have been cut of from nature. On my dogsled trips when we make camp at the end of a day, students quickly learn that the care of their dogs is their primary responsibility. The first thing they will do is unharness their dogs and check their paws. They will feed them and water them before they prepare their own food. This is nothing new to a farmer, but to young people who perhaps for years have only been responsible for themselves and maybe never had a pet, there are quiet lessons to be learned here.
Prayer : Dear Lord, we thank you for the wilderness and the lessons we can learn during our time spent interacting with it. Amen.
Quote: “A beast need not have utility to have worth. Its value is in the eyes of God. God declares it to be good, as God does the whole creation.” Calvin B. De Witt.
4.7 Wild Places
“Remember how the Lord your God led you … in the wilderness in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart ….” Deut. 8:2.
We need to get outside. We need to take a break from the internet and as God’s co-creators enjoy his natural creation. Even the trees were made pleasing to our eyes. We need to get to know and name the plants and creatures we discover – animals, birds and bugs. The physicality of being active outdoors means getting healthy exercise, but it also facilitates an intimacy with our Father's creation.
Coming off the trail one time, a student told me it had been “hard at first” but she “had gotten used to the silence.” At first I didn’t understand her comment, but later I reflected on how wired people are with internet, cell phones, face book, You Tube and the like. They are often in a state of stimulation. For some students it affects their concentration and quality of work. Young people like to be connected to their friends. That is part of youth culture but in order to become deeper people, they also need to become comfortable with silence and opportunities for reflection and contemplation. It is not a coincidence that the words recreation and re-creation have the same spelling.
Part of the Reformed understanding of history is that while life began in a garden, we are destined at Christ’s return to live in the New Jerusalem, the City of God. What does that mean for the wild places of the world? I think God wants to have wild environments where His feral creatures will have the room they need to live their lives out naturally, pleasing their maker. Many of us future city dwellers will also need these wild solitary places which can refresh our spirits and energize us in our daily urban lives.
Drinking for the first time from a mountain glacier. Watching storms kick up over Georgian Bay. Paddling hard against the current on the French. These activities are like the sacraments of God's book of natural revelation. We who have a chance to go to the mountains are especially blessed but what I have learned is that we need the mountains even though we may never go there. We need to know their glaciers continue to exist. We need to know that polar bears are wandering over a frozen Hudson Bay. I don't know if I will ever set foot in those wild places, but it comforts my heart to know they exist.
Prayer: Dear Lord, in the midst of a busy world help us to hear your “still, small voice.”
Quote: “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.” Mother Teresa
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