Look. Listen. Attend.
This blew my mind.
I am not sure that I should be surprised, it is The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis after all, and the experience I had with Miracles should have prepared me, somewhat, for this one. But there I was, in the middle of a soccer field waiting for registration to begin for soccer camp, where I read words that were very foreign to my way of thinking - those that said that Nature does not teach. It merely illustrates that which is being taught. Of course this threw me a bit though I can't think of a reason why it should have.
I would like to have thought that I could be instructed by the ant, or the changing seasons, or the warmest of breezes ahead of the approaching front...but what part does the mere physical have in my spiritual instruction? How can it speak apart from what has been spoken about it? How can it instruct apart from what has been revealed about it? I thought that it may be a bit strong to think that I come to the conclusions I want to about nature based on what I have decided to learn, but which part of it would rouse me from so deep a spiritual slumber? Which atom would shout to me of the salvation that I needed in Christ? Which leaf would grow to proclaim that, it too, awaited the revealing of the sons and daughters of God?
The easy and most comfortable answer is "all of it" for I fancy myself a worldly and wise student of creation. The right answer is "none of it" for all too often I fall into the trap of thinking that I figured this out on my own. That somehow I was astute and resolute enough to have caught something that no one else has. But this supposed school master only issued an invitation to look, listen, and attend. I was told to consider the ant in a special context by some other source (Proverbs 6:6). If I hadn't been instructed in that way, who knows what lesson I would have desired to learn from it.
I am not sure that I should be surprised, it is The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis after all, and the experience I had with Miracles should have prepared me, somewhat, for this one. But there I was, in the middle of a soccer field waiting for registration to begin for soccer camp, where I read words that were very foreign to my way of thinking - those that said that Nature does not teach. It merely illustrates that which is being taught. Of course this threw me a bit though I can't think of a reason why it should have.
I would like to have thought that I could be instructed by the ant, or the changing seasons, or the warmest of breezes ahead of the approaching front...but what part does the mere physical have in my spiritual instruction? How can it speak apart from what has been spoken about it? How can it instruct apart from what has been revealed about it? I thought that it may be a bit strong to think that I come to the conclusions I want to about nature based on what I have decided to learn, but which part of it would rouse me from so deep a spiritual slumber? Which atom would shout to me of the salvation that I needed in Christ? Which leaf would grow to proclaim that, it too, awaited the revealing of the sons and daughters of God?
The easy and most comfortable answer is "all of it" for I fancy myself a worldly and wise student of creation. The right answer is "none of it" for all too often I fall into the trap of thinking that I figured this out on my own. That somehow I was astute and resolute enough to have caught something that no one else has. But this supposed school master only issued an invitation to look, listen, and attend. I was told to consider the ant in a special context by some other source (Proverbs 6:6). If I hadn't been instructed in that way, who knows what lesson I would have desired to learn from it.
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