You can learn so much when you’re out in nature. You can change and see things in a new way. It might have to do with slowing down and aligning ourselves to the rhythms of nature.

I was a newly minted boy scout at 12 and I was off on my first camping trip. We stuffed 6 scouts in a tent meant for 4. We went to sleep nice and toasty but woke up all wet. We learned on that cold and miserable morning that sleeping bags shouldn’t touch the side of a nylon tent. The morning dew just comes right through. It’s a lesson I will never forget.

I also learned how to set up camp with just the light of the moon. I’ve camped in just a sleeping bag and a tarp for my Order of the Arrow Ordeal. It was a magical night, sleeping beside a lake underneath a sky so clear, so free of light pollution, you could see the Milky Way. It’s a memory seared into my mind. We go to sleep all the time, thinking nothing of it. But that’s a time I remember.

You can learn so much when you’re out in nature. I learned how to hike. How to identify plants. How to find crawdaddies and salamanders in creeks. I learned the local flora and fauna, the difference between an oak and a maple, the various subtypes of each.

You can learn so much when you’re out in nature. Toledo poet Kevin Anderson brilliantly captures what we can learn from nature in his poem Noble Nature, from the book of the same title:

Noble Nature,

First revelation predating every sacred text by millions of millennia,

Inexplicable maker of life in ridiculously redundant variety—do we really need, for instance,
370,000 specie of beetles?-

Ultimate model of extinction of all attachment to what is and creative openness to what is next,

Paragon of the permanence of impermanence.

I love how he calls nature God’s first revelation. We can learn so much about nature.

A big revelation for me was the fact that the Bible was written outside. The people in that day were one meal away from starvation. They were reliant on the land, they knew the stars by name and the stories behind them. They flowed with the seasons. What we would call “camping” they called “home.” The Bible was written outside. Psalm 19 declares that everything is praising God. As The Message paraphrases the first 4 verses, “God’s glory is on tour in the skies,
God’s art is on exhibit across the horizon.
Madame Day holds classes every morning,
Professor Night lectures each evening.
Their words aren’t heard, their voices aren’t recorded,
but their silence fills the earth:
unspoken truth is spoken everywhere.[1]

Jesus used simple metaphors. How God’s eye is on the sparrow. God clothes the lilies of the field better than any king. Of sheep and goats. Of treasure buried in the field. Christ points to nature often in his parable because Christ knows how nature teaches us.

Today, Jesus, Peter, James and John go for a hike. They are out in nature, making their way up a mountain. Then something happens when they reach the top. James thinks they’re dehydrated. John thinks maybe the altitude has affected them. Peter isn’t so sure.

There Jesus stands, and his clothes become dazzling white. And there appears to them Elijah with Moses. Moses, that law giver who shaped the nation of Israel. And Elijah, that prophet who reminded the nation of their standards when they strayed. Just look how the law and prophets meet in Christ!

And then The Voice… speaking from a cloud, echoing the words that maybe only Jesus heard at his baptism… “This is my son, the Beloved, listen to him!” The disciples are confused, Peter wants to make camp right there and stay, but Jesus knows that after the mountaintop view, you have to go back down in the valley. And he tells them not to say anything to anybody. Maybe in their confused and shocked state, the disciples would mess it up. Maybe their tale would prevent others from listening. The question is… are we listening to Jesus? Are we listening to God’s beloved?

Christ who tells stories of nature and common everyday life. Stories of women. Stories of outsiders who are the unexpected good guys who stop and help us out when we find ourselves beaten and bloody and lying in a ditch.

Jesus is always doing that. Calling us to take time to notice the world. Slow down and notice nature. Slow down and notice your neighbor. They just might be transfigured before your eyes and you’ll see the divine breaking through.

We have houses with heating and cooling. We aren’t affected by the seasons as much as those who live outside. We can ship food in from all over. Strawberries around here are  ripe in early summer, but they are in our grocery stores year-round.

This distance from nature is allowing us to break some laws. God has set the law, and has sent many Moses-types to tell us about the laws. The importance of consuming less, of recycling more, of reducing our carbon footprint. And when laws are being broken, God sends prophets to remind us.

We have many Elijahs around telling us of the consequences of our actions. After putting all sorts of carbon into our atmosphere, it’s beginning to impact our climate. Our oceans are rising. Those who live on islands off of Virginia could be the U.S.’s first climate change refugees.[2] The famous moose of Minnesota are dying off. They are being replaced by white-tail deer who are going north because of warmer temperatures. Moose and deer aren’t meant to share the same environment. All sorts of deer-born parasites are killing off the resident moose who have no immunities.[3]

The west is drying up as weather patterns have changed. More and more communities are at risk.[4] Yet we haven’t heeded the warning signs. Many are still in denial. And they can deny it because we’re separated from nature. We’re not listening.

Yet God isn’t one to give up on us! God is still speaking, day and night. In the words of Conservation of nature, of treating our world, God’s first testament with respect and dignity. Let us listen to Jesus, who saw the wisdom of nature, and all that nature can teach us.

Christ who is both law and prophet. Jesus knew how a hike up a mountain or a walk in the woods can help us see new things, restore our souls and lower our stress levels. We can see God shining through the laws of nature. We can be prophetic by reducing our consumption, starting to recycle more, picking up litter.

I see the divine in our young people who will learn so much from scouting. They will develop and grow. And maybe, just maybe… one day they will learn how to stroll through a field and notice… notice God’s first testament of nature, and notice their neighbor. Their neighbor who isn’t as scary as they once were. Not when you get to know their story. Not when you see them for who they truly are.

We can learn so much from nature. We learn we’re not as disconnected from the world, from one another, from the Divine, as we often think we are. Can you listen? Can you listen to the law and prophets? Can you see Christ in yourself and your neighbor? Tell me, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

 

[1] Carrell, Lori. Preaching that Matters: Reflective practices for transforming sermons. Page 95
[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/virginia-islanders-could-be-u-s-first-climate-change-refugees/

[3] http://www.startribune.com/deer-bringing-death-to-minnesota-s-moose/455232463/

[4] https://www.seeker.com/the-us-southwest-may-already-be-drying-up-1770849116.html