From My Nature Journal -- Celebrating Earth Day by Praying through the Creation Story: Day 5, "Known"

Introduction: The ways people pursue God, or even pray, can be as different as the very people who pursue God. Spiritual writers and mentors have long appreciated these varieties of pathways that pilgrims have followed in their prayer journey. For example, many are led to deep devotion through such things as music, contemplation or activism, but others have found that it’s the beauty and mystery of the natural, created world that leads them to a humbling encounter of praise and prayer with their Creator God. Of course, the pathways mix to varying degrees according to our personalities and interests.

Those who find nature an important spiritual pathway can see their own faith story unfold in the creation story of Genesis 1 and 2 in the Christian and Jewish Bible. Being mindful not to worship creation but only the Creator, a consideration of the natural world not only helps them do that, but also guides them in their stewardship of what God has created. Each day this week we will look to the ‘seven day’ creation story from these first two chapters of the Bible’s very first book. All references are from the Bible’s New Revised Standard Version.

Day 5 – “Known” -- And God said, “Let the waters bring forth… creatures, and let birds fly… Be fruitful and multiply…” (Genesis 1:20, 22)

Read: Genesis 1:1, Genesis 1:20-23, Job12:7-10 and Matthew 6:25-34

Reflect: “Be fruitful and multiply,” said God. But if there is ever any question about God’s generosity or largesse, that question seems to be answered when considering the veritable abundance of his creatures. For example, did you know there are about 10,000 known species of birds, and 30,000 fish, compared to about 5,000 mammals? It is no wonder primitive peoples were impressed, looking to animals in their animistic religions. We could do far worse than that, and often do.

Yet in spite of their numbers, it is these beasts Job turns to for encouragement in his suffering, needing to know that God has not forgotten him. (Be sure to read that passage, it’s delightful!) Jesus also refers to birds as proof of God’s loving care, not only in the Matthew 6 text but in Matthew 10:29, where he says that the Father takes loving notice when even a single, plain sparrow falls to the ground. What a God!

But have you noticed a phrase and word that has been used in each of the Genesis passages we’ve read this week except for one? In five of the ‘six days of creation,’ it says, “And God saw that it was good.” (God must have had a bad day on Day 2!) The Hebrew word for good is tov (long O). Tov is more than just a generic good as we might think of it. Tov is great cheer, the highest of goods, a sense of well-being in the widest sense. And by ‘day 6’ after animals and humans are created, God calls it all very tov! Even God was impressed.

Observe: Think for a moment: how many birds do you think you’d recognize by their call alone? A robin? A crow? A chickadee? (That one’s easy, they say their name!) Write down as many as you can think of in three minutes, even if one is a rooster! Then give God thanks that he knows your voice, he knows your name, he knows your needs and those of your loved ones.

Pray: I am astounded by your creation, God, awed by its complexity and variety. From landforms to animals to the heavenly bodies to human beings, your table is indeed an abundant one. Thank you for the beauty of your earth. Amen.

Hymn for the Day: “All Creatures of our God and King”

Link for the Day: Dccorah, Iowa Eaglecam

From My Nature Journal: A Sure Sign of Summer

The nighthawks are doing their evening dance, flitting higher and higher, butterfly-like, then rolling into their booming, wind-jamming and wing-jarring dive. One just scared the bejeebers out of me with his sonic boom not fifty feet away.

“Pete!” they call, “Pete!” as if they all have the same nickname…

Last night I listened to them late into the night, long after I had crawled into my sleeping bag. And every time I stirred awake overnight I could hear them, far away or close by, even until dawn.

I’ll not forget the first time I ever heard the boom, years ago while on another solo campout. I had squirreled a day aside to spend on retreat, early summer as now. Up over the hill to the south came this strange sound. From a distance it almost sounded like the propane flame intermittently fired under a hot air balloon, ending with something of a small pop. I actually climbed the hill to look to the sky. Nothing. So then, was it an animal roar of some kind? It was hard to pinpoint the sound’s direction. A surprise it was to realize it was a small bird doing aeronautics. It didn’t seem to be going after prey, so I guessed it was some kind territorial or mating display. Yet maybe it was just doing it for the sheer joy of it, just because it could. I suppose if I could do that, I would.

Now that I think of it, the sound, if it could be lengthened beyond its half-second duration, is also like the sound of a semi going the opposite direction from across the median of an interstate highway. Strange that I have to compare it to two such contrary notions, a hot air balloon and a truck, but I can think of no natural comparison.

Perhaps it was doing it just for the

sheer joy of it, just because it could.

I suppose if I could do that, I would…

I see and hear nighthawks everywhere, from here in the boonies to the roof-top deck of my sister’s Chicago-urban-core condo. I also remember watching them as a kid on warm summer evenings up at the Michigan family farm. It might even be the first bird I learned to identify, what with its evening apparitions, its fluky juking and jiving, and its easily-seen white chevron underneath each wing. But it is odd I don’t remember the dive or the boom, such a unique characteristic.

Anyway, it is both a current delight and a pleasant memory.

I will speak of the glorious honor of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works. (Psalm 145:5)

~~ RGM, from an early entry in my nature

journal, adapted June 28, 2017

From My Nature Journal: Open Hands

I hold my open hand outstretched toward a tiny bird. It is full of nuts, and I am hopeful the little guy will light on my palm and receive what I have to offer. Sometimes it works. Most often it doesn't. But it is always worth it to try.

Open hands... 

An open hand can symbolize many, many things. Held simply open it can mean, as with the bird, that I have something to give; or if it’s empty and held forward, it can also say, “I have need.” Upheld alone and facing forward it can be a simple acknowledgement of hello or goodbye, formal or informal, enthusiastic or reticent. Upheld with the other hand it can be a figurative or literal sign of resignation or surrender, “I give up,” a show that my hand hides nothing that can threaten the one to whom the signal is made. Angled at my side, palms forward, it is a beckoning gesture, a motion that can mean welcome, come nearer, stand by me. Yet waving forward from the elbows it says go away. Palms down it says, “I’m finished, I’m staying put,” or that things have settled. Held high overhead it symbolizes the desire to be chosen, noticed, “Teacher, pick me!” Held palms up at shoulder height it says I don’t know, I’m confused.

Such variability from a simple open hand gesture, sometimes even contradictory! Hello or goodbye. Come or go. I’m staying or I’m coming. I have need or I have excess. I’m settled or I’m confused. I know or I don’t know. And that’s just gestures using an open hand! It’s a pretty diverse appendage.

I hold an open hand outstretched toward God in prayer, hopeful God's presence will light and receive what I have to offer. What is the meaning of my gesture? Is it an offering? A symbol of resignation or surrender? Of confusion or of being settled? Of openness to receive? A welcome? A beckoning that the Object of my prayer advance, that He come nearer? A desire to be chosen? All of these? Especially in times such as our country and church are experiencing now?

We never thought of our hands

as being empty so much as

caught in the act of receiving…

A friend sent me a poem once about a man who had grown up poor, but somehow still provided for, who had lived a simple and unpretentious life. “We had so little,” he said, “that there was no point in our asking God to protect what was ours. We had life and limb, friends and kin, time for play and work. It was enough.”

The poem ended with these lines: “We prayed with our hands open and turned toward heaven. We never thought of them as being empty so much as caught in the act of receiving.”

It’s a lovely image. And perhaps made especially so since the image is of an open hand and not a clenched one...

Lord, let my open hands before You be ones that have something to offer, to You and to others, in these critical times. And let me never, ever see them as empty, only caught in the act of receiving. Amen.

~~RGM, adapted from an old entry in my nature

journal, after a morning on the beach at Hobe

Sound National Wildlife Refuge near Jupiter, FL

From My Nature Journal: To Fly

A Brown Pelican glides effortlessly down the beachfront against a stiff south wind. To watch, one might easily deduce flight to be absolutely easy, a simple thing. This awkward, bigheaded, non-airworthy-looking bird doesn’t seem to move a muscle as it sometimes skims inches over the surface of the water, floating over the breakers like no other, to unbelievable distances, flapping slowly only after long intervals.

It seems as if all I would have to do to accomplish the same is stand on the dune and dexterously position a couple flaps of cardboard under my arms. Voila, liftoff! No wonder the bird’s face seems set in a permanent smile.

How is it that a man like me so often dreams of unaided flight? To soar, to fly, to lift above the uneven earth, its yawning valleys, its prodigious heights?

For now, though, I am a kite, not a bird: I require both string and tail. The string is my humanity, my ‘creatureliness’ created of my heavenly Father, the part that holds me back to allow me lift. But the wind of the Holy Spirit gives me to rise in concerted force, leveraged with my very humanity. And all is held in balance, stabilized, by the tail that is Jesus Christ. I know that’s a strange designation for the Lord of my life, but it seems fit to the analogy.

Just the same, my life as a kite is only a foretaste. We were made to fly. Some day…

Soon.

~~RGM, from an earlier journal entry while at

Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge, Jupiter Island FL

From My Nature Journal: The LBJ...

An LBJ… That’s a phrase birders use to refer to any nondescript little bird they cannot identify, or choose not to for the trouble of it. An LBJ is a ‘little brown job,’ generally a sparrow of some sort. One hardly has to pay attention to spot them. They’re ubiquitous, everywhere. Some folks call them LGB’s, ‘little gray birds,’ but the birders I have known prefer LBJ.

In walking through a natural area just now, I picked up a little grey-brown feather actually floating down through the air from some passing little brown job. I could never begin to make identification at this point. The bird is long gone. What’s left is just an indistinct little feather from some indistinct little bird.

But nondescript? I look closely and find it quite lovely. It’s

only about three and a half inches in length, soft-white shaft, soft grey-brown hairs.

Nondescript? In what way? The closer I look the more astonishingly beautiful it becomes. The shaft is not all soft-white, nor the hairs all soft grey-brown, but of differing hues; even the individual hairs are multi-colored. And there are hundreds and hundreds of those soft hairs, starting so minusculely small I cannot see them with my naked eye, then gradually getting longer until they are about three eights of an inch at their longest on the one side, but then shorter again, somehow tapered toward the top in such a way as to leave an impression of a rounded tip. (How does it do that?)

Nondescript? In what way? The 

closer I look the more astonishingly 

beautiful it becomes...

Nondescript? Hardly! I imagine if I held this feather under a microscope, I would be even all the more thoroughly amazed by its complexity. And this from just one indistinct feather from what many consider an insignificant little bird!

Lord, I am an LBJ, self-confessed, in fact a card-carrying member of the club! I struggle at times to know my own significance in this world, in my current ministry call, in what You seem to be calling me to. But Lord, You know what?

I can sing my little heart out for You, too. I can sing it from the top of my little insignificant lungs. I can add my voice to the praises You hear from Your hills (from whence my Help comes), or from Your trees (that clap their hands), even from Your very stones (as they cry out Your praise), let alone the praises of Your people! Yes, I am a little brown job… For even in my insignificance, You do Your astonishingly beautiful work.

                                                   I am Your workmanship.

Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest, at Your altar, O lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in Your house, ever singing Your praise! (Psalm 84:3-4)

~~RGM, From an earlier journal entry,

Adapted for my blog September 6, 2014

POTM...*: Screeeeeech...

(*Photo of the Month)

OK, someone who is a better birder than I will have to help me out here. Gail and I came across this little character while we were hiking one of the Aguirre Springs trails on BLM land on the east side of New Mexico’s Organ Mountains on Mother’s Day, the Pine Tree Loop to be exact. About half way in, he came out of a thicket and perched himself on a tree not ten yards away. Over about ten minutes we stood and watched, took some photos as best we could in low light, then moved in to about five yards and took some more before he had had about enough of us and departed.

As best we can tell it is either a Mexican or Mojave Screech Owl, certainly a Western Screech of some kind, maybe seven inches in height. It’s not a Burrowing or Pygmy, so that’s where we’ve had to leave it.

The trail is a lovely one, about four and a half miles in length with a thousand foot elevation gain. About a week after we hiked it, the news came through that the President had just signed new legislation designating the Organ Mountains - Desert Peaks National Monument; not sure if it takes in the Aguirre Springs area (I’ve not yet been able to find a map of the proposed monument anywhere), but wouldn’t be surprised if it did.

Jesus it was who said, “Consider the

birds of the air…” We’re doing our 

best to obey him on that point.

Screech owls are interesting little critters, very common but not often seen. Where we vacation in Michigan, Eastern Screech are said to be the third most common owl behind Great Horned and Barred, both of which we hear often and see occasionally, but we’ve not seen a Screech. Will have to become more familiar with the call, so we may ‘see’ it that way. (A naturalist’s rule: hearing is another way of seeing.) From what I can tell, one of its calls sounds very much like what we have assumed to be tree frogs, so maybe we have heard it without knowing.

Jesus it was who said, “Consider the birds of the air…” We’re doing our best to obey him on that point.

~~ RGM, June 12, 2014

Blowin' in the Wind: Job 12:7-10, Holy Bible

(Blowin’ in the Wind is a regular feature on my blog consisting of an assortment of nature writings – hymns, songs, prayers, scriptures, poems or other things – pieces I may not have written but that inspire me. I trust they will do the same for you.)

Whitetail Fawn

Ask the animals and they will teach you,
the birds of the air and they will tell you.
Ask the plants of the earth
and they will instruct you,
and the fish of the sea 
will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hand is the life 
of every living thing
and the breath of all humankind.
               ~~Job 12:7-10



Yup, much to learn from Job... No wonder it’s among the Biblical writings called Wisdom Literature. Are people the only things in creation that have the capacity to ignore the Obvious?

Common Loon (Photos by R&G Mylander)

Job is wedged in a place of deep suffering. The friends that gather around him offer little consolation, insisting his travail is of his own doing. But Job is sure of his integrity before God and appeals to nature in his defense. Creation knows. The mysteries of faith, pain and life are peaceably accepted by the rest of creation; why not us? 


My pastor and good friend Paul has this phrase he uses from time to time -- “…Right observation. Wrong conclusion.” Job’s detractors are often guilty of this. They and we might do well to look more keenly for guidance at the way God speaks through God’s creation.

~~RGM, February 18, 2013

P.S. Next up? Photo of the Month...