Thursday, March 4, 2021

Reading the Book of Nature

 


Ruth, who is definitely the better half of this household was up before dawn finishing the gripping novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. A short while later she was reading Dr. Kitty Cat aloud to her enraptured three-year-old granddaughter. Ruth reads to her several days a week via Facebook. She wasn't aware that this is Unesco World Book Day, but she certainly got a running start on the spirit of the celebration.

Later in the morning she was bookish again, as we walked by the Bay of Quinte. A saunter in the natural world might not seem like a good read but some Medieval Christian writers would beg to differ. They suggested that God's revelation was through two books, the Bible and Nature. There is a later and quite famous quote by Francis Bacon which reiterates this. 


I'm a book-lover on both counts. I do enjoy delving around in the bible and find that I always learn something new. The same can be said for the "text" of Creation. No two readings are alike when outside, and God is revealed in a great variety of ways through the seasons. I think of the people who have been so familiar and attuned to their fields and forests  that they've read them like a book, 

I appreciate that the spirit of World Book Day is about the printed word rather than time in nature. Yet the latter story is so often an engrossing page-turner with endless outcomes. Why not appreciate the Creator in both ways?  

No comments:

Post a Comment