Reading Chesterton commenting about the impression that some frightful weather made on him, and remembering C S Lewis 's remark that he loved the quiddity of weather, I was reminded again when catching up with another British writer that their experience of extreme weather
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world! (King Lear)...is a bit limited. So when you Christian readers are being instructed by writers drawing their inspiration
from Europeans rhapsodising about God's Creation, suggesting that one can know Him better by gazing
off into the green distance, recall that the origins of this thinking are not from people who have your weather.
Farmers, fishermen, and herders do not rhapsodise about nature and the weather. (And notice James's
comment at the first link about who does love nature.) Nature is overrated. When I hear the phrase "...the
beauty of God's creation" I immediately assume that church camp was important to your early spiritual
development.
1 comment:
Well, natural theology of that sort was all the rage in the early 19th century. Maybe they were educated back then?
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