Nature Reflection #1

 


Nature Reflection #1

            I have been blessed to grow up with a dad who loves wild, beautiful places. The kind that Edward Abbey wrote about, completely untouched by human hands. As far back as I can remember there have been camping trips and hikes and paddles. I have seen some of the most beautiful places on planet Earth and those memories stick with me forever. This exercise is great because it forces me to find beauty in the regular. I think I can scoff at the nature here, knowing that it doesn’t compare to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota, the San Juan Mountains of Colorado or the Lakipia Plateau beneath the shadow of Mt. Kenya. However, stopping to look around and see the small ways that nature shows her majesty amongst the hustle and bustle of a college campus is beautiful in its own unique ways. I took this picture when I was walking back from class to my house because I was struck by the wide, extending, twisting branches. At first, it appeared to be a cool tree. Then it started to look like the tentacles of a big creature. But the longer I stared, and the less I focused on it, I began to see veins and capillaries. Like it was part of brain diagram or a picture of our nervous system. I would say I am a spiritual person, growing up in a Christian household where I graduated to a lot of questions and doubts about it all. However, nature always makes me feel like there is indeed a Creator out there. The scale, the majesty, everything, it just feels right in my soul when I am in the wild. I felt the same thing with this tree in a different way. It seems too similar to so many other things in nature – our brains, our nerves, a river system from 30,000 feet, the small veins in the leaf of a tree- for it to all be an accident. I love deep thought and logic and I often feel this comes into conflict with my religion or spirituality. Nature is one place where all of that thinking goes out the window and something just clicks deep inside. This little tree in the middle of TCU reminded me of that. A good reminder that it is always around us even when we feel it is not.

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