What Does Quakerism Teach About Connecting to Nature?
“One of our biggest difficulties, I think, is that we live so much in language and so much in a mediated world of electronic media and print media, all of which tends to distance us from our connection to the natural world.
Getting into that sense beyond language is not only healthy for personal spiritual renewal, but it’s also crucial to reconnecting with the natural world, which is a nonverbal world.”
— Douglas Gwyn, 2018
Quaker minister and author
Reader Responses
How does your relationship with the natural world relate to your spirituality?
I try to walk as gently as possible in this world. Because when I stop and observe an ant at the work they do, I cannot help but imagine the delight a creator must take in their function and inherent gratitude for their tiny lives. They waste not one moment given them to live their purpose! The same can be said for the largest oak tree in which they live. However one may believe, whatever path we find ourselves on, the beauty and intricacies of nature can only point to one thing: a living consciousness of gratitude and awe for having been included in this amazing tapestry woven by Life itself! That gratitude and connectedness gives guidance and meaning to live a life of gentleness and compassion for all creation.
JD S., Stevens, PA, USA
I embrace the reality that the natural world is God's first bible. Several scriptures refer to that fact. Such as, "The heavens declare the glory of God, the firmament shows forth God's handiwork..." It is in nature that I experience the presence of God in a deeper and profound way. I realize my oneness with God in all of nature.
Joseph J., Milwaukee, WI, USA
My relationship with the natural world around me is my spirituality. I am most in touch with the divine when I'm gardening, raising my chickens, walking in my woods. Of course, I need people, too. My knowledge and understanding (which is deeper than knowledge) of the way we humans interact with the world continues to transform my values and, as far as I am able, my actions in the natural world. I have great hope that a collective knowing will arise and we will create a world infused with the divine that is much kinder to our fellow creatures and to each other.
Ellen S., Center Conway, NH, USA
When I meditate/contemplate the vastness of the cosmos; images from the Hubble and Webb space telescopes; observe the beauty of mountains and seascapes; rivers & oceans and all the living creatures in them and lush tropical forests, I am aware of the Divine presence that animates everything that exists. I'm transported from my narrow & limited concerns and recognize myself as part of the infinite web of life that supports & sustains me with oxygen, water, food and shelter. In those moments I'm filled with awe and gratitude at "how great Thou art." The Soul and Cosmic Mind of the universe is both immanent and transcendent; the all in One and the One in all. How can anyone observe this and not be awestruck by the magnificence of the presence of the Divine, the Ground of all being.
Joseph I., Washington, DC, USA
This Week’s Messages
Mon Dec 30
A Living God Who Made All Things
“One morning as I was sitting by the fire, a great cloud came over me, and a temptation beset me; but I sat still. It was said, ‘All things come by nature’; and the elements and stars came over me, so that I was in a manner quite clouded with it. …And as I sat still under it, and let it alone, a living hope arose in me, and a true voice which said, ‘There is a living God who made all things.’” …
Tue Dec 31
Creation Is Not Only About Pristine Perfection
“Creation is not only about pristine perfection; it is about the messy compromise of politics, the beauty and ambiguity of art, the violence of war and the belligerence of free moral agents, the raw edges of literature and music, the tragic. It is about pastures and fields, yes, but also about planted fields and the genetic modification of the seed in those fields. In short, a doctrine of creation places us in conversation with ourselves about humanity and about human effort.” …
Wed Jan 01
Love for the Least Creature
“I was early convinced in my mind that true religion consisted in an inward life wherein the heart doth love and reverence God the Creator and learns to exercise true justice and goodness not only toward all men but also toward the brute creation.” …
Thu Jan 02
You Are United With the Rest of Creation Through the Divine
“Underlying all truths is the universal truth of a Divine present in all… This reflects the emphasis in Ubuntu theology, of the radical communal unity of humanity through the interdependent interpenetration of the Divine within all of creation, including human beings; through their intimate relationship with the Divine as created beings, each person is free to fully express the truth of their individuality while also acknowledging that such individuality can only exist as each individual is united with the rest of creation through the Divine.” …
Fri Jan 03
Expand Your Awareness Into the Vastness of the Universe
“To listen for the heartbeat of God is to listen both within the vastness of the universe and within the intimacy of our own hearts. And it is to know these distinct ways of listening as essentially one, as two aspects of the same posture of consciousness.” …
Sat Jan 04
A Person Is More Than a Machine
“Of course inanimate nature, that part of nature most easily thought of as made of atoms, cannot be totally unlike ourselves. According to the doctrine of evolution, inanimate nature is merely an early stage of ourselves. The only sound way to hold to the particulate, mechanistic doctrine is to insist that we also are mere particles in motion, a machine which is part of a larger machine.” …
Banner image: Gillian Pokalo
