Tomorrow (Monday, September 22) at 2:19 p.m. EDT, we move into my favorite season of the year: Fall. Now why do I love fall – the spectacular colors of changing leaves which I can see easily from where I live. The crisp crunch of fallen leaves. The cooler temperatures. Those scenes help me appreciate God’s wisdom, power, glory and faithfulness. Every year the leaves fall and several months later they reemerge. Those scenes help me connect to God in ways that enhance other forms of spiritual disciplines I practice. I cannot help but break out into Beethoven’s The Heavens are Telling!
Nature has so much to teach us about who God 
is, our relationship with God, and the ways in which we encounter and experience God. Remember, Christian mysticism focuses on a tangible, immediate, and unmediated experience of God’s presence or divine love which can lead to a transformative feeling of wholeness and healing.
The Apostle Paul knew that nature could be one of our best teachers and experiences. His words in his letter to the Romans help us see that: we can clearly see God’s nature through our own seeing of creation – of the nature that is all around us. Sunrises, sunsets, flowers peeking through the sidewalk cracks, mountains, hikes through forests.
In his letter to the Ephesians, he points out what roots us – those deep roots of connection evident in plants and trees become the deep roots of connection that teach us about the width, height and breadth of God’s love that we witness through Christ. That rootedness allows us to love others and helps us to be filled with the entirety of who God is. Nature is part of that entirety.
David knew that and we see nature woven all throughout the Psalms. Even John Calvin, one of the fathers of Presbyterianism, argued that the natural world is a “theater” where God’s glory, wisdom, and power are revealed, and that all people possess an innate “sense of deity” that allows them to perceive this revelation, even if distorted by sin. An innate sense of deity! An innate sense of God/Jesus/Holy Spirit. What a wonderful gift!
There have been many Christian mystics through the centuries who have experienced God through nature, but today, I want to share three:
First, St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th century founder of the Franciscan Order. Born wealthy, he gave all that up and immersed himself into poverty. But he is especially known for his love for all things nature – plants, animals, humans. He believed that we are interconnected with each other through and with the Divine. I love how he called water and sun and fire and moon his siblings and the earth his Mother. Hear his words:
“Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
“Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens you have made them, precious and beautiful.
“Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air, and clouds and storms, and all the weather, through which you give your creatures sustenance.
“Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.
“Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom you brighten the night. He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.
“Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us, and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.
“Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those who endure sickness and trial. Happy those who endure in peace, for they will be crowned.”
We will hold a Blessing of the Animals (there is s a sign up sheet for volunteers to help) on Saturday, October 4 as part of Kirkland Village’s fall festival.
John Muir is another Christian mystic who found God in nature. Known as the father of the national parks, Muir was a Scottish-American naturalist whose writings expressed a deep spiritual reverence for the wilderness. His activism was driven by a conviction that nature was a holy place where one could find God. Some of his writing includes these quotes:
- God’s love is manifest in the landscape as in a face. – Cruise of the Corwin, P50
- There is “no synonym for God so perfect as Beauty.”
- Every natural object is a “conductor of divinity.”
And, finally Ilia Delio, a Franciscan sister, theologian, author, and university professor who did her undergraduate work at DeSales University (then Allentown College). Delio is deeply influenced by St. Francis of Assisi’s awe for the natural world and the humility of God hidden within it. This tradition informs her view that the path to mystical union is not a rejection of the world but a loving engagement with it, seeing the “face of God” in all creation.
She once quoted Thomas Merton: “[He] expresses the need for this mystical imperative: The Christian’s vision of the world ought, by its very nature, to have in it something of poetic inspiration. Our faith ought to be capable of filling our hearts with a wonder and a wisdom which see beyond the surface of things and events, and grasp something of the inner and “sacred” meaning of the cosmos which, in all its movements and all its aspects, sings the praises of its Creator and Redeemer.” (From Teilhard to Omega: Co-creating an Unfinished Universe)
I could go on quoting mystics on nature and God, but I think the best way to experience this is for you to experience it yourself. Lindsey will tell us how.