Random Acts of Spirituality Eighteen
For centuries, Christian teachers spoke of nature as God’s Other Book, a place where the Creator could be known through careful attention. This idea echoes what Paul writes in Romans: “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” (Romans 1:20). Creation itself bears witness to its Maker.
Yet many of us today have lost the ability to “read” this book of nature. Our eyes have been trained by television, screens, and advertising, media designed to capture attention quickly and move us along. As a result, our habits of seeing have changed.
When I was an art student learning to draw from life, I discovered that drawing forced me to really look. The longer I drew, the more I observed. Drawing helped me see more clearly, and it felt almost sacred, like glimpsing a little more of the care with which the Creator formed the world. Because of that practice, the world now feels fuller to me, full of beauty and interest.
Drawing is not everyone’s cup of tea. But there are other ways to practice attentive seeing. One simple exercise is to use your phone to record a one (or more) minute video of a small scene such as a plant, a patch of sky, or light on water. Making a video causes us to attend, and then later, watch the video from beginning to end and you might even notice more about the scene. Another approach is to set a timer while you are in nature and simply remain with what you are looking at for longer than 30 secs. You might want to move on quicker than what the timer is set to, but let yourself remain. Let it become a kind of visio divina, a contemplative way of seeing.
A few years ago, while visiting Beacon Hill Park, I filmed a short video of light playing across leaves beside a tiny waterfall. Then I saw more and filmed that, and then saw more again...today I share one of those videos. I invite you to watch, noticing how reflected light dances across the leaves. Our vision can become a gateway to unexpected spiritual moments if we allow ourselves to linger. God made the world beautiful and fascinating. Learning to look at it slowly and lovingly may itself be an act of devotion and encounter.