Nature - God's Wonderful Works!
Friday, February 15, 2013
THE BEST TEACHER
OF ALL!
By
Francis William Bessler
Laramie, Wyoming
2/15/2013
Note:
When I was a kid, I grew up on a small farm in Powell, Wyoming. My family thrived on a little farm of 66 acres. Being that our farm was such a small farm, we had to rely on every acre to produce in order to sustain our rather large family of two parents and eight kids. One of our crops was pinto beans - and it was crucial that we harvest those beans when it was ready to harvest them.
In the normal harvest month of August one year, our bean plants had been cut out of the ground and were lying in what were called “winnows” - or rows of uprooted plants to be fed into a machine called a combine. Leastwise, that is how I remember it. Anyway, while awaiting to be harvested in those winnows, our small bean crop was extremely vulnerable - especially to a hail storm.
One time, when I was about 14 or so, I remember sitting in our living room and not wanting to go to the living room window for resistance about seeing what looked like a huge storm coming in. I was not terrified of the storm, being inside, but I was well aware of what hail could do to our meager and necessary crop of beans - drying out in a field in winnows. I expressed a sense of peril to my Dad. I was so sorry, I offered, that his (and our) crop of beans could be wiped out in an instant by the storm at hand. I will never forget how Dad reacted.
He said: It will do no good to worry about such things, Francis. Come over to the window with me and watch God’s Wonderful Works in process!
You see, for Dad, all that terrible lightning and terrible thunder - and potential imminent hail - was only part of “God’s Wonderful Works.” I was encouraged to enjoy it - and not be dismayed by it. As it happened, no hail came that year, and all my worry had been for naught, but the lesson I learned from that little event has stayed with me all of my years.
As Dad would say it, Nature is God’s Great Handiwork, but, in effect, Nature is really equal to God. That is how I have lived my life - seeing Nature as equal to God since, in a way, Nature cannot exist outside of God and God cannot exist outside of Nature. Where one is, the other must be. If that is not an expression of true equality, what can be?
Seeing God and Nature as really one makes it really easy for Divine Naturists like me, however. We do not have to rely on someone claiming to be a prophet of God to learn about God. All we have to do is look at what is about us because what is about us is the God many would seek elsewhere. If Nature - and all that is Natural - is really of God, why look elsewhere?
Indeed, why look elsewhere - unless what you see is not what you want to see? I do believe it is that “want” factor that allows people to both - overlook the magnificence of what they see - and dream about something a whole lot better than what they have.
I think it is a lot like being able to choose classrooms. I can go into one classroom that is teaching one subject and then decide I don’t really care about that subject and “want” to change classes. So, I might leave an unwanted classroom behind and go searching for another; but what I should not dismiss is that the classroom I left behind is still just fine for those students who want to learn the subject taught in that class.
For example, say that I am thinking about going to Spain. Accordingly, I choose to attend a Spanish Class - or a class that teaches Spanish. Then I change my mind and decide I do not want to go to Spain. I decide I want to go to France instead. Thus, I drop out of the Spanish Class and join the French Class. That’s just fine, but it is good to realize that just because I decide I do not want to learn Spanish does not mean that all the students in that Spanish Class were not right in staying there.
Now, what would happen if I decided that I did not want to attend any class available to me? Say that I decided I “wanted” to attend a whole different class, but not knowing what classes might be available in another area, all I could do is speculate about what I might learn in another class. Still, my heart would yearn for that other class and my mind would think of nothing else - even though, in reality, there is no other class. Wanting another class - and another school - will not make it happen. Will it?
Then consider this scenario. In my discontent, after rejecting all the classes available to me, I run into a fellow discontent in the hallway; and this fellow discontent tells me that he heard of another class in another land far away - and that the Master of that far away class wants students as much as students want him. Whoopee! I exclaim to myself. I knew it! I don’t really have to mind all these classes here available to me! Another Master is waiting for me - far, far, away!
And thus, I chuck what is at hand out the window. I did not want it. I do not want it; and I will not accept less than the Great Class of that Wonderful Master a fellow discontent told me about. For the rest of my life, then, I live to ignore the classes at hand while yearning for that “much better class” awaiting me if I simply present some evidence to the Master of that far away class that I want to be his student.
In a manner of speaking, I think this is what has happened to the whole human race. I think it really finds itself in a True Paradise - and all we have to do is recognize it is a True Paradise to be happy within it; but in not recognizing we are really in a True Paradise, we simply spend our lives wanting another paradise somewhere else. That paradise at hand, however, is like a University or School. We have to study it to appreciate what it has to offer.
People like Dad and Me don’t really have to study intently, however, to be good students. In reality, just wanting to be in a class is quite enough for Dad and Me. Why? Because we see too much majesty in what is around us to suspect that such majesty is not right. People like Dad and Me don’t really have to be meteorologists to appreciate the weather. In fact, we don’t much care about the details of what makes a wind blow or rain to form and fall - or snow to happen about us. Still, we are good students of the Paradise at Hand because we see it as such.
People like Dad and Me can look at a rabbit - and be amazed. We can study the rabbit and watch it hop about and watch it trying to find a mate, but beyond that, we don’t really need to know any more about the rabbit in order to “appreciate” it. Why? Because we see ourselves as like the rabbit. There “ain’t” no real difference as far as we can see. That rabbit and us are the same; but in studying the rabbit, we “appreciate” ourselves - and conversely, in studying ourselves, we “appreciate” the rabbit.
Now, other people might be passing along the same trail as Dad and Me. There is the same rabbit hopping about - the same wonder that Dad and Me want to watch; but they are so focused on being part of some far away paradise that they don’t even see the rabbit - and instead, find themselves stumbling over some rock in the path, causing them to damn the rock and wish all the more that they just weren’t here.
In one of my favorite works, THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS (sometimes referred as THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS) - and I deal more with that gospel in other of my writings in my website - in Verse 3 of that work, Jesus said: If those who lead you say to you: “See, the Kingdom is in heaven,” then the birds of the heaven will precede you. If they say to you, “It is in the sea,” then the fish will precede you. But the Kingdom is within you and it is without you. If you know yourselves, then you will be known and you will know that you are sons of the Living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you are in poverty and you are poverty.
As Jesus offered in that verse, the key to being in Paradise is Knowing you are in Paradise. Look about you and wonder about what you see - and enjoy it. If there are birds in the air, that is their heaven. If there are fish in the sea, the sea is their heaven; and if you are a “son of the Living Father,” heaven is right where you stand.
If you know yourselves, he says, you will be known - by however you see yourself, of course - and by those who see themselves in like manner. If I think I am a “son of the Living Father,” but you do not see yourself likewise, then you will not know me as a “son of the Living Father.” Why? Because it takes one to know one.
And therein is the true tale of life, I think. Discontents know discontents. And contented ones know contented ones - even in the midst of a general discontent among others. That is just the way it is.
In the light of “it takes one to know one” and my belief that Jesus knew he was a “son of the Living Father,” I wonder if ones like Peter really knew Jesus. If Peter - or any of the alleged disciples of Jesus - really knew Jesus, they would have known themselves as “sons of the Living Father.” Otherwise, they could not have really known Jesus.
If Peter saw himself as a “son of the Living Father,” he could not have seen himself as other than “deserving.” I see myself as a “son of the Living Father” and I see myself as “deserving” of that class as well. Granted, I am not responsible for making it happen, but I am “entitled” to the Gift of Life I have been given - merely because I have been given it. If Peter thought likewise, why did he act like he was a “man of sin” that had to be redeemed to be deserving? And if Peter really believed that he was a “son of the Living Father” - like Jesus and Me - why did he go forward and preach that life is not really as it is supposed to be? Why did he go forward and offer that there is another heaven someplace else that the “worthy” will attain and achieve? Based on that, I really wonder if Peter - or any of the alleged disciples of Jesus - really knew Jesus.
In the end, however, it is up to each of us to choose the paradise we want - or want to see. If we insist on a paradise far away, then I suppose we will spend our lives dreaming about that hoped for paradise - even if, in fact, no such paradise exists. But if we decide we are going to be apt students of this world and let another world be for itself, then we are apt to be good students of this life and see wonder in a hail storm that might even destroy our livelihood. For ones like Dad and Me, Nature is our Teacher - even if the details of the class we are attending we miss. In the end, perhaps, it is not “passing a class in life” that is so important. It is merely attending it - and wanting to be there.
Thanks! (FWB)