What does God mean to me? Well for something to mean anything there has to be a something or someone, which evokes the question; is there a God at all?
The God we are brought up to believe in, as told in the bible, created heaven and earth in six days, resting on the seventh for his endeavours. He created man, and from two mere human beings we are now billions, a world population almost unmanageable and far exceeding the very planet he created for us. Or did he?
If we aspire to the Darwinian Theory it all becomes far more logical. Science created the planet we live on, Magnetic forces; atoms and bacteria all playing their part. Creatures, plant life and human beings have evolved through the ages as the climate and their needs changed.
On paper the scientific theory looks fine, the equation neatly packaged. As humans, living today, we question and analyse everything, wanting clear cut answers. It wasn’t always so. Folk of ages past lived their lives more simply; their way of life was governed by the changing seasons and their belief of God. Even as far as to fear him. Life had a mystery about it then.
Now, we in the developed world make decisions about what will happen, when and how. Striving to make it so whatever the consequences.
Back to the question, what does it all mean to me?
In my opinion the two cannot be separated. Science is the practical explanation of the grand design of nature. God is the beauty, the splendour and the feeling of inner peace that nature exudes.
Take a vast Scottish hillside with clouds scudding across the sky. Science dictates that only heather grows in the peaty soil. Bacteria inhabit a brackish pool attracting swarms of biting midges. High above, riding the thermals, two buzzards perform an aerial display. You stand there feeling you are the only person on earth. Then the sun breaks through the clouds, lighting the scene with an ethereal glow, its rays glinting off the wings of the birds of prey, reflecting their golden hue. It is God that created the moment.
Take a deserted expanse of sandy beach with it salt laden spray and rolling sea. It is science, with its magnetic forces and the pull of the distant moon, which controls the incoming and outgoing tides. Alone with your thoughts, it is God that communicates, allowing you to cast your troubles to the waves.
Behind you, an awe inspiring backdrop of a towering cliff-face, reaches to the heavens. Carved by years of erosion of changing weather conditions and the hoards of birds that have nested there, seeking out the sculpture of its nooks and crannies. Truly God’s architecture in all its natural form.
You walk alone in the sanctuary of deep secret woodland. Your thoughts and deep inner feelings form a poem in your head;
Oh dear sweet woodland of pure tranquillity
Oh how I bathe in your ethereal beauty
Nature’s cathedral in majestic splendour,
Rising, aspiring, and saluting the sky.
Let not it silence fool you, nor its stillness belie
For if you pause a moment upon your passing through
You’ll hear a choir of angel’s song to freshen you anew.
All manner of creatures are there, although hidden
They’ll bid you come! Come join in our congregation.
Do as they bid, my friend, and linger a while longer
Your heart will be lifted, your senses heightened,
Your resolve stronger.
Reach out; capture its essence secrete it away in your mind
So when you feel bruised and battered,
By the injustice of mankind
Release it; and let the scene unfold
Allow it to breathe; it’s yours to behold.
Oh dear sweet woodland of pure tranquillity
Oh how I bathe in your ethereal beauty.
God is science and science is God.
Nature in all its rawness, that is what God means to me.
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