Nature and God’s Love

Psalm 36:5-11: Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O Lord, you preserve both man and beast.

I spent last week traveling in southern France and northern Spain with two of my colleagues, once a practicing Roman Catholic, and the other an agnostic. We didn’t have to work on Sunday, so we decided to take a drive along the Atlantic coast and into the Pyrenees mountains. The scenery was spectacular. Along the coast of Biarritz and St Jean de Luz, we saw the wonderful beaches and sailboats in the harbors.  The waves were breaking perfectly in front of a garden that was blooming with daffodils, and hyacinth.  As we drove south, we began to climb the mountains where we saw green pastures full of sheep and spotted a local wild pachok pony grazing on a hillside. From a high point , we could see the ocean off in the distance, and behind us a snow capped mountain top.

After 3-4 hours drive, we stopped for lunch, and had a chat about how France differed from America . Since this was the Basque region of France and Spain , I commented that I was surprised not to see more mosques in the villages. We saw very few Christian churches, too, except for those open as museums for tourists. Our agnostic colleague told us that he shared the view of many people in this area – there is no God. He asked us why we believed, in spite of all the violence and damage that religion has caused. These sentiments are common in this area, where many people blame God, rather than human perversion of religion for the Christian / Moslem strife in their history and in their current lives.

 We pointed to the magnificent creation we had just seen and professed that all of this could be no random occurrence. God’s majesty is present in the sea, the mountains, and the animals. If the earth were 1% closer to the sun, we would burn to death. If the axis of rotation was tilted 1 degree more, we would freeze. The beauty of the spring gardens are a testament to God’s power and beauty.  The animals are a blessing as companions, tools for our labor, and as food. Most of all, we hear and see and feel God in our lives everyday.

Dear Lord, thank you for the wonder of creation. Guide our words when our faith is questioned, that we might be channels of you love and mercy in this world. Amen.

Susan Ardito