The following article originally appeared in the Spring 2009 edition of ‘Desert Call,’ a publication of the Spiritual Life Institute in Crestone, CO.

Creation as Revelation
by Mark Kutolowski

Gently and steadily, cool mountain waters flow over and across the countless granite boulders that compose the riverbed before me. Past experience tells me granite is extremely hard, yet these rocks look soft, even malleable – not a single sharp angle remains after ages of immersion in the river’s flow. I recognize that even the hardest stone has been softened by the persistence of the living water flowing around it. This is good news, for my sorrow and anger, my hardness of heart, is what drove me here to this wild place, in search of solace and peace.

I had hiked nearly five miles from trailhead to this spot on the banks of the Pemigewasset, my mind and emotions railing after several months of over-busy and under-prayerful living, culminating in a particularly ugly argument with a friend. I knew I needed to be alone, alone with my Creator to heal and return to my true self. Now, with the scheduling, packing, and even the hike in completed, there was nothing left to do but sit, listen, and pray.

I watch the water endlessly rushing over the boulders. I listen to the rhythmic chorus of the many cascades. The sun dances on the shifting surface of the moving waters. Gradually, any clear sense of time fades, and I no longer know if I have been sitting here minutes or hours. It no longer matters – the land had welcomed me into its sacred time. As I continue to watch the river subtly shape and smooth the stones, Living Waters begin flowing within me. I feel the rough edges of my wounds begin to soften. What is rigid within me cannot remain forever in the presence of this welcoming River, and I feel my pain being swept downstream along with the twigs and leaves before me. The physical and spiritual, the inner and outer landscapes, have merged to the point where I am no longer sure where, or if, any boundary exists. I burst into tears, and my tears fall freely and become one with the river around me.

A sacred peace rushes into the space opened up by the outpouring of these tears. In this peace, I stand, drop my burden/pack from my shoulders, and strip down. I am not possessed, but neither are my movements wholly my own. The Holy One moves with me, moves in me, as I shout out ‘Immerse me in You!’ and plunge into the frigid waters. My flesh sears with pain, yet screams with life, as I am submerged once, twice, and a third time. No longer separate, the River and I are, for an eternal instant, One. I emerge, gasping, and stand a different man on the same bank of this same river. Some part of me has died and been resurrected here. After drying in the light of Brother Sun, I give thanks to God for Sister Water and return to my clothes and my pack. It is good, very good, to be alive in God’s Creation.

This story of my healing in the Pemigewasset embodies a revered and ancient Christian way of engaging with the natural world. The early Church experienced Creation as Revelation, as a Divine self-revelation imbued with immense spiritual power and significance. Our Christian ancestors often referred to nature as ‘The Book of Creation,’ and saw in Creation a parallel to the other great text of Revelation, the book of Scripture. As they learned the ways of God by reading and reflecting on sacred Scripture, they also trained themselves to perceive divine teachings and wisdom in the forms and patterns of nature. Similarly, they used both Scripture and Creation in prayer as a springboard into the presence of God. Underlying both of these approaches was their understanding that the act of creation was an ongoing manifestation of God’s Spirit, rather than something that happened once, in the distant past. I believe this Christian practice of ‘opening the Book of Creation,’ all but forgotten in our modern churches, offers a profound and promising way to heal of our relationship with nature. If we, like our predecessors, can learn to encounter Creation as sacred and filled with Divine Life, we may find a way to cease our destructive ways and live peaceably with the rest of the earth.

Just as the Christian tradition recognizes Scripture can be read and understood at different levels (literal, moral, allegorical, and mystical), Christians have also ‘read’ nature at different levels. One level of opening the book of Creation is to learn to see and comprehend spiritual teachings expressed in nature. As God is the author of Creation, we can learn about God and spiritual truth through studying the natural world. Through careful observation of nature, and reflection on what we see, we can detect something of the intention and will of the Creator. This is how, while observing the rocks in the river being smoothed by water, I was led to reflect on the power of the ‘Living Water’ that is God to smooth and heal my heart. Another example of this way of reading Creation comes from the stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers:

One day, a Greek philosopher journeyed to visit Abba Anthony. Upon entering his cell, the philosopher was shocked to discover it empty of books. “How can you be so happy, when you do not have the comfort of books?” The philosopher exclaimed. Anthony looked out over the vast desert and replied, “My book, O philosopher, is the nature of created things, and as often as I have a mind to read the words of God, it is in my hands.”

St. Anthony of Egypt (251-356) saw the words of God written in the desert, and through his life of prayer and meditation he learned to read and understand this sacred book. For those willing to follow in his footsteps, these words are still present in the land, waiting to be read by eyes that see.

Another way that early Christians read the book of Creation was as a means of entry into prayer. In this level of reading Creation, reflecting on nature elevated the mind and heart until the ‘reader’ was overcome by an awareness of God’s presence. Thus St. Gregory Nazianzen (328-389) exhorted his followers ‘I want to awake in you a deep admiration for creation, until you in every place, contemplating plants and flowers, are overcome by a living remembrance of the Creator.’ This approach is very similar to the monastic practice of lectio divina, where Biblical texts are read not as a means of obtaining intellectual knowledge but as a method of drawing the reader through the text into a living awareness of its divine Author. Ancient Christians recognized both Creation and Scripture, emerging from the same Source, as way into the living presence of God. In my experience at the river, my watching and listening to the moving water, rocks, and light gradually gave way to an awareness of the Presence from which they emerged. As with lectio divina, there is no magic technique to moving from reading and relating to nature into a dynamic awareness of God. All we can do is to come with a desire for God, and to look and listen with a receptive and attentive heart.

Underlying these ways of relating to nature is a dynamic sense of Creation as an ongoing reality. In both scripture and the mind of the early Church, Creation was not an event in the ancient past, but the reality that God brings the world into being at every instant. The God who ‘makes all things new (Rv 21:5)’ is at every moment expressing the Divine Life in Creation, and inviting us through Creation into a relationship of deep union and love. As theologian Luke Timothy Johnson writes, ‘The Christian confession of God as creator is not a theory about how things came to be, but a perception of how everything is still and is always coming into being….In this sense, everything that exists is equally capable of revealing God simply by its existence….This is the Christian view of reality: creation truly is magical, for it reveals the mystery at the heart of everything that is.’ Because Creation is an ever-present activity of God, reflection on nature is not merely a way to learn hints about what God once did, but can become a portal into the living mystery of God, here and now.

Our perception of Creation has enormous implications for the way we interact with, and steward, the earth. As long as we view nature as something separate from ourselves and God, we are likely to live in ways that harm the earth. Even well intentioned environmental efforts, both religious and secular, advocating wise stewardship of natural resources often perpetuate the illusion that nature is an object under our care. Only by learning to see and experience Creation as Revelation will we acquire the deep reverence and awe for the land necessary for truly sustainable living. When we encounter nature as a source of profound spiritual teaching and as a doorway into intimacy with God, we will no more damage the earth than we would desecrate a Bible or our most sacred relics. When we experience Creation as the ongoing activity of God, as an incredible miracle taking place all around us, we will recognize degradation of the earth as the great evil it is. With this awareness, we will be empowered to finally live at peace with the earth and the entire community of life.

Our Christian ancestors related to Creation as a sacred and profound manifestation of the Power and Presence of God. They learned to read this ‘Book of Creation’ both as a means of understanding spiritual teachings and principles, and as a pathway into intimacy with God. In their relationship with nature, they understood Creation as the dynamic, ever-new expression of God’s life and Spirit. This understanding of Creation has immense potential to help us encounter nature as a sacred pathway to God, and to come to a new, more healing and sustainable relationship with the natural world. God’s teachings and presence in Creation are as potent today as there were for the early Church. If we are willing to enter into nature with their spirit of reverence and listening, we too can encounter Creation as an immense and wondrous gift of God’s Revelation.