One of the blessings about where I live in the Arkansas River Valley is the prolific numbers of birds. Today I watched astonished as two red-shouldered hawks danced above me in the clear morning air, calling to each other. They were clearly mates, enjoying the cool air and sunshine, enjoying life. Watching them stirred some thoughts . . .
The hawks called to mind comments made by the 19th century naturalist and ornithologist Thomas Nuttall, who wrote of birds: “They play around us like fairy spirits, elude approach in an element which defies our pursuit, soar out of sight in the yielding sky, journey over our heads in marshalled ranks, dart like meteors in the sunshine of summer, or seeking the solitary recesses of the forest and the waters, they glide before us like beings of fancy.” “Their actions are directed by an uncontrollable instinct of provident nature”—the will of God directs their actions and instincts.
And Psalm 24 reads: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for He has founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the rivers.” Or as Jesus said in the Gospel of Luke: “Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them.”
Observing nature, walking through a forest, strolling by the sea, watching the birds flitting in an about like fairies–such is what God calls us to do respecting the earth: treasure it, protect it, enjoy it.
The American Plutarch 