From the early June 2013 edition of The North Woods Call
Last month’s Mothers’ Day celebration at our house was blessed with a magnificent display of nature’s beauty.
In addition to the majesty radiated by women who have fulfilled the duties of motherhood with great honor, selflessness and dedication, we were reminded of God’s own glory by a colorful display of birds at the feeders in our back yard.
There were bright-red cardinals, sunny yellow goldfinches, red-bellied and hairy woodpeckers, blue-gray nuthatches and two pairs of rose-breasted grosbeaks—all at the same time—among assorted other avian critters.
Not bad for a collection of hanging feeders that for one reason or another have been largely bereft of life over the past winter.
Such gracious exhibits of outdoor wonder always cause me to pause and consider the architect behind this resource-rich planet on which we live. There is such incredible artistry, mathematical precision and divine order behind all that we euphemistically call “Mother Nature.”
And some would have us believe that it is all the result of random happenstance.
The Christian holy book, however, instructs otherwise: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse (Romans 1:20).”
Every man and woman, of course, is free to choose whether to accept that instruction, but individual refusal to believe something doesn’t make it any less universally true. I, for one, don’t entirely understand how so many of my fellow sojourners can miss something so obvious, but I know that many do.
How can one not be humbled by the supernatural bounty that we see all around us—not only in the awesome appearance of winged creatures, but in all the richly diverse living things that populate the natural world? The microscopic complexity of a single cell is in-and-of-itself enough to cause me to embrace intelligent design and reflect upon its meaning.
But the purpose here is not to debate theology—or even reality—but simply to express appreciation for all that we have been given by our earthly mothers and beyond.
Fathers’s Day will be here soon, and with it yet another opportunity to count the blessings that emanate from caring parents and a loving home. Far too many children these days grow up without the safety, support and encouragement that an intact family provides. And for that we’re all the poorer.
I assume that the colorful birds I see at our back-yard feeder do not contemplate such weighty issues. Their lives and personal responsibilities are hard-wired into them to be carried out without much argument.
But men and women have been given a choice—to internalize the truths and lessons so loudly proclaimed by the natural world, or to ignore them at our peril.
We have been allowed to use our creativity and intellect to solve many pressing problems and invent numerous life-improving devices. For that we can be grateful.
Yet, while we boast about these great achievements and celebrate the glory of our own minds, we are daily fouling our collective nest. We are abusing our resources, polluting our spiritual lives, tearing apart the world’s social fabric, and crushing the God-inspired institutions that have given structure and purpose to the human experience.
Looking beyond the sunflower seeds, cracked corn and suet that hangs outside our windows and nourishes our feathered visitors, I’m not sure the choices we are making are the right ones.
Are you?
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