By Genevieve Nelson, Wyoming Catholic College
“Little we see in nature that is ours.” The phrase from Wordsworth’s poem “The world is too much with us” aptly describes mankind’s general attitude toward the created world. We are foreigners in a strange territory, hardly more ill at ease than if we were abandoned on Mars. We know nothing of the types of common plants, the behavior of animals that provide our food or how to care for them. No one knows what constellations look like, or the appearance of the moon. So few have ever been in the open country, without electric lines, or walked on any but paved roads. Worst of all, these are only symptoms of a much deeper problem: the ignorance and complete disconnect from the knowledge and life of our forefathers which is regarded with indifference. After all, why should we care about a connection to nature? Aren’t these all outdated ways of life which our forefathers were forced to out of necessity, until the industrial
revolution? Does the natural world have anything for us to learn from?
The answer to this question which I hope to bring out at greater length, is that the experience of nature is indeed important in more ways than one, and more important for the Faith than most Catholics realize. For since reality is the truth, and God is truth, we cannot know God well without being grounded firmly in reality, in a knowledge of our and the world’s existence. And this knowledge of reality is most aptly learnt and found out in creation, since we are creatures composed of body and soul, and learn by physical experience of what is around us. In order to bring out this idea more fully, first some objections will be considered and answered. Then the connection between reality and nature will be more fully explored, according to the authorities of John Senior and St. Paul. Lastly, the practical methods for educating the faithful more thoroughly in the experience of creation will be examined.
Some objections may here be raised, that people may find God without being in contact with His creation. After all, there are many saints that have lived and worked in the cities all their lives, far from many of the beautiful and healthful aspects of the country. There are obviously many ways to reach God without exposure to His creation, as long as we keep His commandments and receive the Sacraments. God’s grace, after all, comes through His sacraments and His word. The Catholic concern should be more focused on educating the young, and giving them to know the truth of the Faith by exposing them to the reality of human love around them, and the love of God. We ought to go straight to to instilling spiritual truths and realities, especially in young Catholics, rather than spending time trying to absorb people in an
transitory, albeit beautiful environment which ultimately is only meant as a tool to point them to
God.
Now indeed there is much truth in these objections. It continues to be just as true though, that humans are composed of both soul and body. We agree whole-heartedly that the ultimate way to reach God is through prayer and the sacraments. Since we are men and not angels though, it is necessary to learn about God’s beauty and power, and other qualities, through the physical means of His creation. Not only is it necessary, it is praiseworthy and most proper that we should learn about God through this means, because He always seeks us in our nature first before lifting us to higher things, even as He did in His Incarnation. Just as learn about the four cardinal virtues as a necessary moral foundation before the three theological virtues, we learn necessarily through the flesh and blood of creation first before we can understand the flesh and blood of God and His Word. Nor do the creation and the Faith mutually exclude each other, any more than any of the virtues exclude other virtues; instead, they must both be learned and experienced together. But experience of God’s creation is a necessary foundation for anyone, especially the Catholic. Some of the saints, such as St Catherine of Siena or St. Francis indeed spent much of their lives in the city toiling among the sick or preaching to the people. It is important however, to remember that the cities of those times were still more connected to nature than they are now. Also, these saints were still able to reach God because they lived their lives entirely for others in the reality of serving God in His suffering poor. They prayed much and were in close union with God. This is scarcely the case for most of us; hence the great need to educate in the experience of nature. This is not to disparage the importance of education in the Faith, especially for the youth, but it remains true that this is a very neglected, though no less crucial issue that must be addressed in order to bring about better education of the faithful and to bring souls to God.
Dr. John Senior, who wrote much on reality, and the importance of nature in connection to it, affirmed that “The real is really real, or in a word is. The terse scholastic formula defines it:… truth follows upon the existence of things” (The Death of Christian Culture, ch. 2 p. 32). That is, the world around you, that which you see and hear, are real and truly exist, not just in the mind. It is not a simulation or a dream, but something actually true. To affirm that there is a real world with real people in it is to affirm the reality of many other things. It is to say that there are real consequences to our very real decisions, that what we do really matters, because it really affects other people and things. I am not just a dream within a dream, imagining that I did things. This is why the knowledge of and immersion in creation is so crucial, for it is in a way more real than the man-made world, because it furnishes real consequences to our actions, and is more truthful than the man-made world, because it is more like God. The creation of God meets the
senses and the intellect so vigorously, with its pain and beauty, that is is much harder for a man to lie to himself, and deny it. Because it was not made by men, it is out of our control, and greater than us in a way. A man can sit at his desk all day long and wonder if life is real, if the white walls around him are there or not, if he is real or not. But if he were to hike through the blinding snow, it would be very hard to insist for long that he is not cold and wet, and there are not snowflakes flurrying around and melting on his face. He knows it is real because the outside world is touching his senses in a way that cannot be rejected. The experience of nature is simply too real, it shouts at us so we cannot ignore it. The man-made world and everything in it is generally non-committal, does not require action or belief, whereas the God-made world says very clearly: “This is all real.”
Now the creation is instrumental not only in bringing to a knowledge of reality, but because God is reality, to a knowledge of Him. St. Paul say on this subject, “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead” (Senior, ch.4 p.72) (Romans 1:20). The higher spiritual things God created, and God Himself, are understood by and are learned about, through created things. God created this world in the beginning so that we might have a way to reach God and learn about Him. Since we are human, we start from our senses, and from there rise up to higher and spiritual things. Man must learn like this because it is his nature; he inherently starts from the particulars, and then goes on to understand universals. Only by understanding the particular instance of wonder and timelessness in the stars, for example, can one understand in some better measure the wonderfulness and timelessness of God, which is so much higher. Even if he is convinced of the truth of something, the belief and knowledge will be useless unless a man knows how to do something about it and how to act in regard to it. The first thing to do, then, to become more connected to God’s creation is simply to experience it. Go sit outside and read. If you have land, keep animals and growa garden. If you have none, grow a few plants on your porch. Go outside the city at night and gaze on the stars in all their glory. But most important of all, throughout all your actions, you must open your eyes, heart and mind to the reality of and the experience of God’s creation. It will do little spiritual good to spend any amount of time outdoors in a careless spirit, any more than it does people good to go to Mass or confession distractedly, with no recollection. If we do not read God’s “first book” with fervor, its hardly possible to read His second book, the Bible, well either. We must learn to slow down, to stop and really see what is around us, to pray and praise God in His creation.
Wordsworth said that there is “little we see in nature that is ours” because we no longer have any connection with it. We do not regard the created world as containing anything that reflects our inmost hearts or strikes a chord in our spirits. We are strangers in it. But we must certainly learn again to see nature as ours, because it is the foundation of knowledge enabling any human to learn about God. Our education in it should co-exist with education in the catechism and in the Faith. This is because it is man’s first and most direct link to reality, which is truth. The strong relationship between reality and truth brings us back to God and knowledge of Him. We must find what is ours in nature, else we will scarcely be able to give ourselves to the Truth that gave it being.
Bibliography: John Senior. The Death of Christian Culture. New York: IHS Press, 2008.
This essay followed the prompt: You are a representative at the Third Vatican Council and have 1,500-2,500 words to explain an issue that you believe needs utmost attention in the Church today. What will you say to the Council Fathers?