Over this past holiday season, I received what seemed to me to be a far greater number of friendly phone calls, emails and conversations than ever before. Most of them came from friends I had met over the many years that I have been jotting my thoughts. And yes, too, a good number of them came from those whom I have not had the opportunity of meeting. But when grouped together, whether reader or acquaintance, they all seemed to drift in a common direction, that of interest and concern.
I suppose age, the season, along with longtime familiarity, could have been the leading factor that several conversations drifted directly or indirectly to the query, “Was I a believer?” My answer to that, with truth unquenched, had to be yes.
And no. Yes, I believe in a lot of things – and no, I don’t believe in many things.
My Little Lady was raised Baptist, so her tendency was to be a churchgoer. I was not. She believed, as I, that no one religion is better than the next, quoted The Bible often, switched churches when convenient, teaching Sunday school in each. In total agreement, our four children each had ten-year attendance in Sunday School, allowing them, with social skills unchecked thereafter, to make up their own minds as to the paths they wished to follow.
Going to church was not my addiction. I felt discomfort in each and every one that I entered. I believe that God and Mother Nature are not strange bedfellows – they are one and the same. To glorify one and care not for the other are equal sins. I believe your God and my God share the same mirror. I believe there is only one God, a Supreme Being, a Master’s hand. Call it what you may – in whatever language, faith, creed, or colour – they are one and the same. I prefer the scope encompassed by the comfortable moniker “Mother Nature.”
I need only take a walk in the woodlands to feel the presence of God’s gallery. I need only hear the rustle of leaves, answering shifting breezes, to see the embroidery of a master’s hand. In the babble of water or in a spring-fed speckled trout brook, I see God’s intricate signature. How could one not believe?
I do not believe in strip mining, clear-cutting of forests, over fishing of waters, monocropping, factory farming, big box stores, excess air travel, and endless miles of unneeded highways – all, in lust of the almighty dollar, yet mercilessly ravaging our God-given natural resources, the water we drink, the air we breathe, the land and the food we eat. They are simply bankrupting our environment.
I do not believe in governments that encourage inflation and deficit spending, which is nothing more and a little less than pushing the paying of the piper onto generations yet not conceived. Can anyone tell me what right we have and what have the yet unborn done to deserve that?
I believe in Darwin’s theory, but I also believe that his learned findings were intricately part and parcel of the Master’s original plan. The same goes for the discoveries of modern-day technology.
Just a short few moments ago, I watched a baby canary hatch from a tiny speckled blue egg and its mother feed it for the very first time. When I see something like that, how could I not believe? When I saw my Little Lady nurse our firstborn for the first time, I believed in miracles. How could I not?
Now I believe I am out of space. But before I go, through an outreach grapevine, I have just learned that Elsie, once from Elora, now Fergus, a long time reader of my column, has just celebrated her 90th birthday. How ‘bout that folks.
Take care, ’cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105