Honoring Nature

Our connection with nature is a strong one. Henry David Thoreau felt that we can never have enough of nature. I agree! We take comfort in her coolness, warm ourselves in the heat of her sun, are awed by her beauty and amazed and frightened by her power and anger; and we respect her wisdom. What person has not longed to "get away from it all" when life's pressures become too demanding? And what are our first thoughts in the search to escape life's burdens: to the woods, the lake, the beach, the mountains and the sea—to nature! It's like coming home.

In his book, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911), John Muir states "We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of sun—a part of all nature...".

I believe, as the physicist, philosopher, G.C. Lichtenberg once remarked, that when we look at nature, we are observing ourselves. I also believe that there is but one Architect of the entire natural world, that when we honor nature, we honor ourselves, and ultimately, we honor our God. It was from the earth we came, and when our lives here end, it is to the earth our physical bodies will return, for we are kindred...

"Honoring Nature", a Video by Monica E. Smith
(music: "Night Rain" by Jim Brickman)


Oh, To Be a Noble Tree

Oh, to be a noble tree
And never have to bend a knee
In the bonds of slavery
Or know the pain of poverty

Regarded as a thing of beauty
Lovely for the eye to see
Not concerned with vanity
Each accepted as he would be

Oh, to be a noble tree
Akin to sun and stars and sea
No fear of inequality
For such royal pedigree

With difference each one’s majesty
And color, just variety
To live a life forever free
Oh, to be a noble tree



Come October

Copper and gold, these riches I treasure
More than any earthly pleasure
Come October they shimmer in fields of grain
A harvest of color, in nature they reign
Behold their beauty, store the memory, look fast
But the blink of an eye and the season has passed



Her Majesty

In the midst
Of her evergreen entourage
Stood the Maple
Majestic brilliance
Glowing as if ablaze
Yet not consumed
By her radiance
Nor could October’s hoarfrost
Cool the intensity
Of such perfection
And I, how blessed
To have gazed upon
Such royal pedigree



Consecration

a solitary leaf,
lovely in death
as it was in life,
tinged with tears
from an early autumn
frost flutters, featherlike
to it's resting place
on the gelid ground,
unaware
it has given its life
that winter might once
again draw breath



Reason and Rhyme

Where is the reason, the rhyme
in a world that honors force?
Look to the wind.

in a world that glorifies might?
Look to the mountains.

in a world that praises power?
Look to the sea.

in a world still seeking beauty?
Look to the flowers of the field.

in a world struggling to be free?
Look to the birds of the air.

Where is the reason, the rhyme
in a world desperately in need of love?
Seek God within yourself.

(poems and some text excerpted from Kindred: A Family Portrait by Monica E. Smith)