Fantastic Nature ...

Friday, July 27, 2012. Nature is fantastic. We have been visiting the Breitach Klamm recently, a valey of stone in southern Germany. A little creak is flowing through the rock fragments, which in the winter can swell to a deep torrential stream. There is a little trail through the valey … and back over the mountains which surround it.

Beauty in Every Country …

There are so many beauties in every country. Have you seen the wide countryside of Siberia? Have you been in the Rockys in the United States? Have you travelled Japan or China? Fantastic nature, Forests, Mountains … even in the middle of Europe the Alps and the North Sea is wonderful and provides a place to enjoy and to live to humans and animals. It seems that every country has been given tremendous treasures! Each given a rich environment …

The mountains are full of little trails, where one can hike and enjoy the scenic views over valeys and mountain peaks. But most of the nature looks like it must have been hundreds of years ago. Human interaction is limited to building alpine huts here and there, and to building ski pistes and various leisure infrastructure.

The same is true for the coasts, where beaches and cliffs seem as they have been for centuries. Our view today coincides with the views and impressions of our ancestors. Our joy links us to our fathers and forefathers. But modern technology has reached nature. One can sit on the mountain top today, with a fast internet connection. One can answer emails and take care of academic activities … then focussing back on the beauty of nature and starting the descent.

Care for your Environment! …

The bible tells the story that nature has been given to menkind, to spread into it, to live in it, to take care of it. Nature is our living place - the whole earth is given to mankind. Nature is given to us to provide food to us in terms of plants and animals. It is given to us to provide space to us to build our houses and towns. And it is given to us to enjoy it, to play, to live, to love, to take care, to be a responsible leader and head.

The relationship of the Christian community to the creation has been moving between two extremes. On the one hand, the preservation of the creation has been a high good of Christians. There are those Christians taking care of nature and our environment, to live in a way which keeps the environment intact, to care and foster and work for it. There are also others, who care less - some even with the theological argument that God will create a new heaven and a new earth. But this second stream has never gained strong influence, except that it goes along with our general human ignorance … Sincere Christians will have a heart for nature and all its components and inhabitants!

But there seems much more in the beauty of nature than just a present to enjoy it. God is talking to us through the beauties, through the structures and colours and forms. It is his creativity which is mirrored into our immediate environment, his power and creativity from microscopic wonders to the huge structures such as massive mountains and cloud fields. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts