Man steht mit der Natur gerade in so unbegreiflich verschiedenen
Verhältnissen, wie mit den Menschen; und wie sie sich dem Kinde kindisch zeigt,
und sich gefällig seinem kindlichen Herzen anschmiegt, so zeigt sie sich dem
Gotte göttlich, und stimmt zu dessen hohem Geiste.
One’s relationship to nature in unfathomably different circumstances is the same as with human beings; she shows herself childishly to the child, and nestles
pleasingly in his childlike heart, and shows herself divinely to God, in
agreement with his high Spirit.
I remember how, as a
child, I first came to know nature. It
was a magical encounter; magical, because it seemed full of a hidden potency
that could be experienced but never fully understood. I was especially overwhelmed
by three particular qualities of nature: its sensuousness, its profligacy, and its
mystery. Why did mint smell so
sweet? Why did even the humblest sparrow
seem so perfectly designed, like a flawless work of art? Why did the date palm freely offer such sweet,
earthy fruit? Why were grapes ripening in the sun so
warm and juicy? Why was the mulberry
tree covered in sweet purple fruit and sour red fruit? Why were even the leaves of chile plant so spicy
hot? Why were sunsets so spectacular? Why were trees so green? Why did the blossoms of the lantana contain
so many florets, each one perfect and unique?
In addition to the sensual richness of nature, there was all its superabundance. The mulberry tree didn’t
just make fruit, it made thousands of fruits.
The dandelions did make a single perfect sunburst, they made fields of
sunbursts. A single bird didn’t sing an incomparable
song, there were always flocks of coloratura sopranos. It all seemed a riddle to me. Why did the lantana offer so many
florets? Why did the date palm make so
many giant clusters of dates? Why did
the sunset paint the entire firmament? Nature’s
generosity was a mystery beyond compare.
But it was a joyful mystery.
Nature’s plentitude didn’t blunt its sensual power. At that time, I had no real understanding
that sickness, death, and decay were also a part of nature. And the first theology I was taught claimed
those things as products of The Fall, of purely human wickedness. They remained somehow apart from nature’s intrinsic
character—if a bird died it was because of human cruelty; if a tree died it was
because of human neglect. Wo Kinder
sind, da ist ein goldenes Zeitalter (Where children are, there is the
Golden Age), Novalis wrote. As a child,
I believed in, and also experienced, nature as it existed in the Golden Age. Like most children, I had a very active and
very rudimentary spiritual life, but it seemed to exist on a different plane than
that of nature. Morality, for example,
was a necessary part of one’s spiritual growth, but it was hard to understand how
it applied to the natural world. Birds
stole from farmers and even each other. Lions
and wolves killed to eat. Spiritual
beings could protect you from harm, but nature was indifferent to human problems. It gave what it could but had no interest in
assuring that you had everything you actually needed. It was benevolent, generous, and beautiful,
but those qualities seemed somehow separate from the same virtues in the
spiritual world.
As my spiritual understanding grew (in its
own halting, confused, and humble way—still infinitely far from a divine understanding
of things), I began to see that nature contained qualities of a spiritual
design: things like unity, order, simplicity, and perseverance, to name but a
few. I began to understand the sacramental
essence of nature. Nature was no longer
just a joyful day at the fair. It was also,
in Novalis’ words, ein Universaltropus des Geistes, ein symbolisches Bild
desselben (a universal trope of the spirit, a symbolic picture of it).
