Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today’s Old Testament reading from the Wisdom of Solomon is fascinating, probably because I grew up with a Protestant Bible that didn’t include this book.

This particular passage notes that many have looked at the natural world and failed to see the handiwork of its Creator. In fact, Solomon notes, these people saw the wonders of nature—fire, the wind, the “circle of the stars,” or the “luminaries of heaven”—and, being moved by wonder, took to worshipping those very elements as gods.

Solomon rebukes this impulse, however, claiming that from “the greatness and beauty of created things/The Creator is seen by analogy.” In fact, those who put their ultimate trust in created matter, despite its beauty and complexity, “are miserable,” says Solomon, and it is only a further step to fashion that material into an idol.

In connection to this, I can’t help but wonder about the prevalence of materialism in the worldview espoused by our society, with its growing sense of alienation and malaise. In fact, the belief in the divinity of created things and the notion that the material world blindly unfolds according to the laws of nature, share a similarity, for both views mistake the true nature of the material world.

All created things, in their beauty and intricacy, draw us back to the infinite fullness of God, who himself created everything that exists, “seen and unseen,”’ out of love. Seeing the world for what it truly is has ramifications for ecology (how we care for the creation), and technology (what tools we develop and for what purpose).

All of this is expressed poignantly in Gerard Manly Hopkins poem, God’s Grandeur, read here by Malcom Guite, or sung in a choral setting by Kenneth Leighton.

Yours in Christ,

—Justin