Soul-scape take one

In what ways does the world around us impact us?

I am not just talking about the news, texts, tweets, and the thousands of commercials we encounter everyday.

I am talking about the landscape right outside your window.

The towering tree I see with branches waving at me.
The blades of grass I can hear slowly growing.
The yellow flowers dancing with the green leaves of plants.
Our backyards are alive with thousands of species of life that we may barely pay any attention to.

Sometimes it has less to do with what we see, rather how we see.

Do I see the tree and the cooling shade it casts or the cost each year to keep it trimmed or the sticks it sheds in every storm?
Do I see the grass or the chore of mowing?
Do I see the flowers or the weeds that have sprung up next to it needing to be pulled?

Part of our world today is that nature has become something we think we need to constantly control.  We have turned nature from something we interact with into something that interrupts us with inconvenient rain when we wanted sun.  One definition of Sabbath are those moments we stop interfering with nature and instead interact with it.  Accept creation on its own terms, listen to the sounds, take in the sights and smells.  Recently I heard Gordon Hempton call creation a “solar-powered jukebox.”  Hempton goes out and records nature.  The sound of a stream, the extreme quiet inside a volcano, the birds chirp.  We are slowly losing places where creation can be heard above the din of human activity and industry. 

In fact now we have coined the term, "Nature Deficient Disorder" for the fact that we have become so separated from the earth of which we were formed and fashioned so that it is negatively impacting our souls.

You see what is around us shapes what is within us.
The landscape can shape your soul-scape.

But in order for this to happen, we need to recapture the fascination with creation.  We need to not idealize or romanticize creation.  There are risks that happen when we step outside our air conditioned habitats.  It can be as minor as bug bites that have flared up on my skin sending me to the doctor for medicine to creatures that when provoked can cause significant harm to storms that damage property and take lives. 

Creation is like all living things both beautiful and can cause brokenness.
Creation like humans can help or even heal but also hurt and harm us in significant ways.

Life interacting with life that is the invitation.

So step outside.
Take a deep breath.
Let your eyes survey the landscape.
Let your nose take in the vast variety of aromas.
Let your ears hear nature's jukebox.
Let your skin feel the air - humid or crisp.
Let your soul sense a connection to creation.

May there be more than a trace of God's grace in that moment.