The Beauty and Majesty of the Natural World and Spirituality
Alexandra Batchelor
Keiser University

Abstract
Whenever there is a tragic event, a needless death, we become bombarded by various religious officials preaching to us. Telling us how we need God in our lives so we have a better respect for our fellow man, woman or child. And while there are environmental activists screaming at their top of their lungs at people; their voices do not invoke change. What they do cause is for people to changes the channel or walk past them at a faster pace. However, if nature was revered for its gifts like God through scripture and praise the reaction of people would be different. There could be a unified voice telling others of nature’s beauty. How people should have a better respect for the land, oceans and animals within it. Perhaps that is what people need, to have a spiritual connection to teach them to appreciate the beauty around them and without this connection to a greater power people don’t see the beauty surrounding them.

The Beauty and Majesty of the Natural World and Spirituality Through praise people are supposed to gain understanding. This is how other religions promote God and the messages he has sent down through the ages. It is the claim of spiritual leaders that through their guidance we will have a better understanding of faith. All a person has to do is spend some time in the local church of any denomination sit down listen to the reverend, preacher, minister, priest or rabbi. Each one will stand on their pulpit read a passage out the bible or torah. The goal is tie that gospel to a person’s everyday life. At the end of their sermon the goal is to have inspired the people sitting before them, those who are part their congregation to learn a valuable lesson that will help them their daily life. And if they are a truly gifted orator have inspired those within the congregation to share the knowledge and understanding they have gained with others hopefully adding to their flock in the future. This is what is needed for people to see the beauty in nature that right underneath their noses. Nature needs a leader to give lectures on its behalf telling Earth’s inhabitants a story from a common book hoping when they are done talking people are inspired to see nature in a new light.
We are surrounded by blues skies, trees and oceans; each working hard to show their beauty and how they help shape the environment. And yet their hard work is lost on people, who are too busy rushing to work or on some errand so they miss the message. Every neighborhood has a church, synagogue or some other place of worship with someone inside ready to give us the word of God. To teach anyone who walks through the door about him and his work; where does one go to listen to nature’s preacher to be reminded about the beauty nature possesses. There was time when people stopped and admired the Earths beauty even praised it and that praise was part of their everyday life. Those were the days when the Earth and its inhabitants lived in harmony and respect for one another that spiritual connection needs to be re-established.
When mankind was new to Earth, they had no choice but find a way live off the land around them. Developing a symbiotic relationship with the natural world, they taught themselves how to find food and what was safe to eat. Later they taught themselves to hunt. And when an area was depleted from their taking they would leave in search of a new area to survive from. This was time when people knew their place within nature and this was how their relationships were defined. They were a small part of the beauty surrounding them and they welcomed this beauty into their daily lives; celebrating in the changes of season, thanking nature for its gifts by helping to replenish it. As time continued man relied more on the world surrounding them, they began to see what nature provided. They understood how they fit in the natural world “Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God” (Emerson, 2010 p.563). This is what is missing; people have lost this feeling of awe. To stand and feel ones breath being taken away staring at a waterfall, sunset or sunrise.
As children people are taught that if they commit a wrong they will be punished by a higher power. The reference is usually to God; though some children think of Santa Claus first. Nature is no different “always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors, and she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them” (Hemmingway, 2010 p. 581-582). Here Ernest Hemmingway gives a description of the sea from the eyes of an old man. Besides giving nature a gender, he goes on to say that she (nature) can be either cruel or kind. We have seen this through history in the bible in fact where God sends a flood after tasking Noah to build the ark giving him instructions to take only two of every animal one male and one female so that later they will go on to create more of their kind. Nature has a way of reminding us of her power, she uses hurricanes, tsunamis’ and other natural disasters. These reminders are sent to say this is my house, remember that and more importantly respect my house. Just to teach people a lesson of who is really in charge. Sort of like a parent telling their kid they have pushed too many buttons. This is nature’s way of showing the inhabitants of the world her might, a little slap on the wrist so to speak.
Many religious people they read and re-read scripture to gain a better understanding of God’s word so they can feel closer to him. Hoping to find a new meaning in the words, they challenge themselves by reading it over and over again and applying the new lessons in life. Nature provides challenges in the hope that people will see it’s majestic beauty, “There was the huge tree asleep yet in the paling moonlight, and small and silly Sylvia began with utmost bravery to mount the top of it, with tingling, eager blood coursing the channels of her whole frame, with her bare feet and fingers, that pinched and held like bird’s claws to the monstrous ladder reaching up, up almost to the sky itself” (Jewett, 2010 p. 594). This excerpt from The White Heron by Jewett helps to place nature’s challenges in perspective; it shows the challenge young Sylvia has climbing the tree and yet it goes on to also show how exhilarating the climb to the top is too. Just like when people feel they reached a better understand of God’s word, people can feel that same excitement when they conquer nature’s challenges, whether it is climbing to the top of Mount Everest or navigating a raft through the Colorado Rapids.
Like most religions nature is complex and beautiful. And looking at nature with the same reverence people have for their faith they can gain a better understand of its beauty and with that a more intuitive respect for world they live in. Perhaps someday more people will reach that same level of enlightenment about nature and there will be places of worship for nature in local neighborhoods to help get this message across.

References
Emerson, R. W. (2010). Nature. In M. Krasny & M. E. Sokolik (Eds.) Sound Ideas (pp. 562-564). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Hemingway, E. (2010). The old man and the sea. In M. Krasny & M. E. Sokolik (Eds.) Sound Ideas (pp. 580-582). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Jewett, S. O. (2010). A white heron. In M. Krasny & M. E. Sokolik (Eds.) Sound Ideas (pp. 589-597). New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.