nature sings

Well written, Mr. Lipps! (And thanks for the link, Dean.)


Re “Heaven and Nature,” by Ross Douthat (column, Dec. 21):

Mr. Douthat tells readers that in the absence of an “escape upward” from heartless Nature into the arms of a God willing to “take on flesh and come among us,” human existence is a tragedy. He further says that we are “beasts with self-consciousness” who “stand half inside the natural world and half outside it.”

Really, now. There’s more to Nature than the “suffering and death” that Mr. Douthat assigns to it. “Nature red in tooth and claw” is a cliché outmoded for generations. Birth, growth, healing and nurturance are all parts of the natural order, too, even among “beasts.”

Religion is an attempt to make sense of the world. That much is necessary for survival. But “numinous experience” is not a requirement. At the risk of being a Christmas killjoy, let me suggest it can actually be a liability, by encouraging people to reject reason for divine revelation.

And let me suggest: "numinous" experience takes many forms, and is often mistaken for pedestrian ordinariness. Mysteries abound, transcendence is just a step away. Don't short-change the possibilities inherent in the everyday.