Creation and the Glory of God

This will be the last of my Lake Powell reflections. It correlates directly with what the topic of discussion of the Day of Learning at Northwestern was centered on today: creation care.

It was a common occurrence over the course of our kayak trip to hear something to the effect of, “I don’t know how somebody can see nature in this form and not believe in some creator God.” This is nothing new or profound and to be honest, not really the direction I will be taking this either. But I do think that many Christians would agree that through nature, God is experienced. Or is it God? To me, if we say we are experiencing God when we are in nature, when we are in the mountains, or when we are kayaking the canyons of Lake Powell, we are elevating the creation of God to God himself. We are on the verge on pantheism . . . that God dwells in everything. And I think this is something we should be careful of. And maybe, what we experience when we are in nature, is NOT God, but rather the glory of God or more specifically, the creation of God being what it was created to be. The creation that pervades Lake Powell (at least the small part that I was in) is untouched by commercialism, and for the week we were there, untouched by tourists. Creation stands as creation. Karl Barth, in his theology, discusses the poles of divinization and secularization. I think his discussion on culture using these as guideposts can also inform our discussion on nature. The nature that my friends and I were experiencing day after day was special because it stood as the creation of God being the creation of God. It had not been touched by developers who would try to divinize it into being some sort of heavenly realm here on earth, nor had people not cared for the land by littering everywhere. People had treated it as the creation of God, not making something more out of it than God created it to be and not making something less out of it than God created it to be. God’s creation was being God’s creation. Thus, maybe we were mistaken when we said we were experiencing God in nature. Maybe we were experiencing creation, and by experiencing creation as creation, we began to see what it was like to participate in the kingdom of God, no matter how imperfect our idea of the heaven of God may be. I think it would be a mistake to equate the beauty of Lake Powell with God. But I would not have a problem with stating that the beauty of Lake Powell captivates us and transfuses us with the grace of God to participate in the life of God.

Transcendence and Immanence

One morning while in Lake Powell, we began kayaking out of a particular canyon. Our launching point was in shin deep muck that reeked of bloody hell and was absolutely freezing as you stood in the water. Nevertheless, it was my turn to push people off that morning. By the time that I actually was in my kayak and on my way, the rest were far ahead of me, trying to escape the early morning chill by finding sun outside of the canyon. For a while, I tried playing catch-up. And then I stopped, captivated by where I was at and what I was experiencing. It was other-worldly. The beauty found in the canyons will truly take your breath away and leave you stunned. As I was floating/slowly paddling my way out of the canyon (unfazed by the cool air), I thought of things that I missed. People came to mind. Things came to mind. But mostly people. And it struck me. In relationships with others, we need a nearness with them. But we also need a distance between us. It’s good to try to get to know somebody as good as possible. But you are never able to truly appreciate those things unless there is some separation, unless there is some mystery left in the relationship. This is contrary to many of my beliefs at this point, in that in relationships, we should offer the other person everything that we have, sharing everything with them, leaving no stone unturned. This is not suggesting that we are to be dishonest or deceitful with another. But there needs to be a buffer space between the two involved within a relationship. Khalil Gibran gets at this idea in a poem of his that is often shared at wedding ceremonies:

Sing and dance together and be joyous/ but let each one of you be alone/Even as the strings of a lute are alone/ though they quiver with the same music.

Stand together yet not too near together/ For the pillars of the temple stand apart/ and the oak trees and the cypress/ grow not in each other’s shadow.

When we know somebody completely, we become content. We become comfortable. There’s no sense of putting anymore work into the relationship. Its work is complete. This temptation to believe that our relationship is fulfilled is something that needs to be resisted. We need both nearness and distance in relationships in order for them to exist in a healthy manner.

Maybe this is why God is both transcendent and immanent. Why God is both near and far. And maybe this is why God decides to remain a mystery. Because relationships can only occur when both transcendence and immanence are present.

Kahlil Gibran goes on to write, “When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be dearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.”

Theology

This is returning to some of my reflections from my Lake Powell expedition. One thing that happens when you are surrounded by natural beauty like that found at Lake Powell is a sense of smallness. Utter smallness. Maybe an appropriate smallness. One of my roommates would always ride as close to the rocks and canyon walls as possible, not because he was scared that he would tip, but because he liked to feel small. He found comfort in knowing that the world doesn’t revolve around him, that he doesn’t control the world. This appropriate smallness is something that I think we all like to experience. Maybe not openly and maybe not often. But from time to time, we feel good when such a feeling is experienced.

But for me, this appropriate smallness was a reminder of the mystery of God. Here I am, already having devoted three years of my life to theological education with three more on the way, and the only thing that I have become more and more certain of over this time is that the more one thinks they know about God, the more they actually have to learn. It’s like a bottomless abyss when trying to seek God, when trying to pin down his attributes, when trying to describe his salvific, redemptive work in the world. And even when we do think we have God figured out, something captures our mind and we realize we were mistaken. Not necessarily that we were wrong, but what we thought of God was still veiled in our finitude. Donald Miller captures brilliantly what I am trying to say here:

God is always changing the way I think of Him. I am not saying God Himself is changing, or that my theology is open and I blur the lines on truth; I am only saying I think I know who He is, then I figure out I don’t know very much at all. For instance, and as I have said, a lot of people believe God responds to formulas, but He doesn’t.

When I was out in nature with no books, nobody telling me what to think about God or how to articulate my beliefs, I was left to dwell in the glory of His presence. And I realized I don’t have to have God figured out to follow Him. What kind of journey would that be if God always acted according a formula? Of course, for all we know, God may act according to a formula, a formula too grand for humans minds to comprehend.

All this to say, I think it is vital for theologians and pastors to step away from the office, from the library, and from their studies and experience some sort of smallness. I find this in the wilderness. It keeps me grounded. It reminds me that God is God and I am not and it’s probably best if I left it that way.