I will love thee, O Lord, my strength; the Lord is my stony rock, and my defense. -- Psalm 18:1
When I was eight or nine, I was playing outside on a hillside near the sea in Rhode Island, where my family spent time during the summer. It was overcast. The air was heavily damp, opaque with mist at a distance of 150 yards. The sound of a foghorn bleated from an offshore buoy like a blind person groping in darkness. I was running around with my brother and friends, barefoot. The stiff blades of crabgrass and the sandy soil were abrasive and cold on my feet. Slivers of moisture hit my cheek as I ran.
Then, my foot ran across a rock whose rough face stuck up above the surface of the ground. And suddenly, inwardly, I felt something very different, coming up through the rock.
An enormous depth opened up from the earth into my body and suffused the air around me. I felt a remarkable presence, eternity packed into a nanosecond, a fullness of time. It was loving and stern, beautiful and awesome, silent and strong, all at once. It stopped me in my tracks. Chronologically, the experience lasted less than an instant. But in a very real sense it has lasted over 40 years, as I remember it clearly today. It was an experience of the presence of God, and I am so grateful.
Because of a rock.
Years later, I am a Christian minister and I run a religious environmental group. Much of our work organizes religious groups to protect the environment. But I've found over the years that most people have powerful spiritual experiences outdoors, experiences which move them deeply and which connect them with the divine as powerfully as anything else. These stories -- of God entering their lives through plants and animals and landscapes and storms and flowers and rocks -- are spiritual touchstones, cornerstones in the foundation of their faith. These are often the most real experiences of God with which they are blessed. When I read in the New Testament about Jesus regularly heading for the hills to pray, I know exactly what he was doing, just as I understand why God called creation "good" day after day after day at the very beginning of Genesis. The earth reveals God to us and connects us to the Spirit.
And yet, people's stories of their outdoor spiritual experiences rarely see the light of day. I've asked hundreds of people. Most of them have never shared their experiences with another person. They're often embarrassed, reluctant or afraid. It's not a compliment today to be called a tree-hugger, and too many Christians still believe that if you get too close to the earth you cease being a follower of Jesus.
This is sad. God offers so much through the earth. Look at what Jesus does at his last supper, taking the fruit of the earth and the vine, and calling them "my body" and "my blood." (Matthew 26:26-29) Read Paul writing about the awe inspired by the fact that the whole universe holds together "in Christ" (Colossians 1:15-20). See how God reminds Job of God's majesty by describing the near-infinite details of the characteristics of wild animals, all owing their complex beauty to their Creator (Job 39-42). Read the psalmist, who writes that "The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork," (Ps. 19:1) and who describes all creation -- animals, plants, landscapes, weather, and people -- giving praise to God (Ps. 148). The earth reveals and connects us to God. In the experiences of our lives and in the Bible, it's right there. What are we so afraid of?
There are few sources of the knowledge of God more powerful than the earth. Christians have known this across the centuries. Augustine -- a theological giant from the fourth century -- described in his classic, The City of God, the "two books" that people can read to find God. "Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that? Why, heaven and earth shout to you: 'God made me!'"
Every Sunday, as I start my sermon, I say a prayer aloud: "Lord God, may the words of our mouths and the meditations deep within our hearts be acceptable in your sight, because you are our rock and our redeemer." I don't think that most people realize that when I say "rock," I mean it literally. Thanks to that rock forty years ago, thanks to the earth, I know God. And I am so grateful.
The Rev. Fletcher Harper, an Episcopal priest, is Executive Director of GreenFaith, an interfaith environmental coalition.
Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality (Part I): From Deep Ecology to ...
The true irony is where was God during the millions of years of human existence without consciousness - or do you believe in the actual age of the earth?
But everything is subsumed within one over-arching spirit, the Great Spirit of All Things, which exists within and yet beyond all things. This is what I know as God. And when we take the Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation we join ourselves, align ourselves, inform and fill ourselves again and again with God. Walk in Love, as Christ loved us, and gave Himself an offering and sacrifice to God.
You do realize that if what you are saying is true that Jeshua endorsed cannibalism? I dont care how holy it is... I wont eat it.
The Atma does not love it is Love itself. It does not know it is Knowledge itself. It does not exist it is Existence itself. The Absolute (God) is not a judgmental, vengeful, wrathful, jealous male Sky God. All of creation, all of the laws of creation exist within it. It cannot be Known or accessed through thought and reasoning, but only through experience.
Any child who "experiences" something like this has had religion pounded into his brain since they cut the cord. To attribute this to a "god" at the age of 8 or nine reeks of brainwashing. Have you watched 'Jesus Camp' ? It seems eerily similar.
And the powerful experience you feel out doors is a sense of relaxation and belonging . . . a trait bred into man (who lived for millions of years out doors) and which has been removed by the demands of society and migration. Even a dog loves to be let out of the house every day; or a cat. Liberate a zoo animal and watch it's zest return.
No God, just a feeling of space and freedom.
Now go ahead and censor this comment.
So you're a real Rousseau naturalist...
but nobody in Christianity ever said the natural world was separated from the creator, anyway. That's why you needed to go outdoors to experience "peace and freedom".
I respect the experiences of others and they can attach whatever meaning they wish, but it's not a source of knowledge.
Hiking is a different matter. I live in NC and savor hiking in our western mountains when I can. Indeed, if there is a God, and that God is accessible through any earthly channel, I've come as close to touching divinity out there as any human being could in this realm, short of dying.
On one remarkably mild December day back in 2009 I hiked with a few friends in South Mountain State Park. The air was so clear that when we reached the summit we were able to see the Charlotte skyline some 50+ miles away to the southeast. On our way down the trail, through our chatter and the natural sounds of the forest, we caught the delicate notes of a flute in the distance, melismatically playing the tune of "Amazing Grace".
The instrumental I heard that day trounced any vocal rendition I've heard in my life, and though I left the church years ago, savoring that moment was one of the most celestial experiences I've known. You know them when you have them. Don't know who was playing, we never saw them--but I'll never forget it. "God" was on the mountain that day, and it was wondrous and fine.
Bertrand Russell
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So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
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¶ But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
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And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
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But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
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¶ Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
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For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.
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For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.