Beauty is in the eye of the My Pictures folder

Forget famine. Forget wars and cruelty. Forget AIDS and cancer. Forget poverty and deprivation. Forget all these things. Don't we live on a wonderful looking planet!

All the bad things aside, we are surrounded by the greatest beauty and majesty in the form of nature. And whether you're into the mountains or the shore, the forests or the plains, narrow country lanes or huge expanses of greenery, our little world can bring you all the nature you want, and then some.

Recently I was in Delamont Country Park, close to Downpatrick. It was a beautiful day and the company was good. It's hard not to enjoy such a setting and as I was walking along one of the prescribed routes (the Garden walk if you're interested) it suddenly hit me that I was not the only living thing there. Sounds daft, but we can all be egocentric now and again. Around me, and mostly unseen, were a dearth of animals and insects - some cute and cuddly, others not so much. And even without the 4+ legged critters I was enveloped by trees on both sides of me. Don't ask me what kind of trees they were. The green kind, I think. These massive edifices of bark and leaf were literally breathing the breath I needed - creating the oxygen that was giving life to all around them. 

No longer was I The Only Living Boy In Delamont (my apologies to Paul Simon). I was but one of many, many living things in that park. And all of us 2, 4, 6 and 8 footed beings were deeply indebted to the trees around us. We relied on them for life.

Process Thought gives much weight to the relatedness of all things. Often, in the past, I have been guilty of believing that the world and everything in it was the property of human beings. It was a belief that came from my evangelical past, and especially of my reading of the Bible. Back then, I considered Man and Woman as the pinnacle of creation. The world was created for us, to be used by us in whatever way we thought fit. Everything in it was therefore to be considered suitable for human 'consumption'. Sadly, it is this type of thinking that has got us to where we are today - on the point of destruction. If only it were self destruction for us humans, but tragically we plan to take around 60% of all species with us.

Now, with Process in mind, I can see that we're all related: all dependent on each other. If God is in all things, as pantheism suggests, then to treat nature with disdain is to treat God with disdain. All very sandal wearing and tree hugging I know, but thought provoking, for me, nonetheless.