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Quote of the Day: Sister Nature
“The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn mother to the worshipers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.” ― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
It’s often said that progressive environmentalism, at least in its most extreme form, is a religion. But instead of worshipping the Creator, its adherents worship the Creation. Their goal is for nature to be utterly pristine, untrammeled, holy. And the role of man/woman/cis-kind is to serve it and sacrifice to it. If we blaspheme Gaia, she will punish us. Repent now or the end is nigh.
Chesterton’s view is much more healthy — and accurate. We are His creation, as is Sister Nature. And, created in His image, we’re charged with protecting her. Just like we would protect our little sister.
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Leave it to G.K. who I only discovered in my late 40s, sadly. Thanks Jon. Worship of nature often leads to a diminished respect for life itself.
Great post, as usual, Jon. I’ve always found Chesterton a little grumpy and dark in his fiction, but I believe he is spot on in expressing his Christian faith.
So interesting. These are two adjectives I cannot associate with GKC, who is to me in all his writing the personification of joyous and bright.
Nature is a pretty nasty sister. I think Nature is more of a mean older brother, one who it out to beat us to death.
When working in my garden I think that Nature loves it when I give her a hand in beautifying the world around me.
Then I look at the destruction of a recent tornado that cracked the tops off stately ancient trees like matchsticks.
Have you ever read At the Back of the North Wind? The North Wind is a lovely lovely thing who can comfort and love a little boy, but she can be violent and fierce and cause death.
Yeah, wow, I love GKC, but this makes me think he didn’t get out much.
Little sisters can be bratty, and they are not always fun to be around. For me, the analogy to nature holds up well.
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This expresses so well my antipathy for the extreme branch of environmentalism which borders on paganism.
This is so interesting. It should be a quote of the day by itself.
Progressives also worship science. And anyone who has studied physics knows Earth is a very fragile place to begin with. Nature is extremely violent and not hospitable most of the time. Chaos is part nature and part sinfulness. Augustine understood that faith could not last long in chaos. Man and nature needed to be tamed.
I’ve never had a little sister, only been a little sister, but I never tried to poison, infect, or otherwise kill my siblings and eat them. Nor did I try to blow down the house, rain destructive hail from 30,000 feet, drown my family, ruin their food supply, or bury them in mud or lava.
Nature ain’t my sister. She’s my mortal enemy. Literally. And she wins in the end.
She does win in the end. We can show these people all the Mayan ruins reclaimed by the jungle and they still don’t see it. Mother Nature is about as fragile as an annoyed rhinoceros most of the time.
Romans 1:25
I love this. :-)
Good call.
If GKC really believed that the main point of Christianity is that nature is our sister, I disagree.
GK and CS Lewis both saw where the west was headed and went to the heart of pathologies destroying western civilization. GK’s aphorisms, are always several layers deep. So why is this at the heart of Christianity?
Man and nature are creations of a loving god. Both emerged out of chaos. Neither are predictable nor predestined and nature can be brutal in the randomness that makes us free. The laws of nature bring order and the emergent laws the Jews gave us through Christianity gave us an ordered civilization where that freedom can be exercised.
I liked the quote a lot – but- yeah – I thought the same thing about the “main thing” aspect.
I’ve always said a lot, and always said it in some way.
What he said and you said, well, that’s what I’ve been trying to say.
But trying to say it in that way? No. I’ve always loved limpid, beautiful writing like that but knew I couldn’t do it so I didn’t try.
This article should be up for Best of 2018, unless Ricochet produces a second semester glut of things good, true, and beautiful.
The Brothers and Sisters of St. Francis.
Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour,
Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all weather’s moods,
by which You cherish all that You have made.
Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water,
So useful, humble, precious and pure.
Praised be You my Lord through Brother Fire,
through whom You light the night and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.
Praised be You my Lord through our Sister, Mother Earth
who sustains and governs us,
producing varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
Praise be You my Lord through those who grant pardon for love of You and bear sickness and trial.
Blessed are those who endure in peace, By You Most High, they willbe crowned.
Praised be You, my Lord through Sister Death,
from whom no-one living can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Blessed are they She finds doing Your Will.
No second death can do them harm. Praise and bless my Lordand give Him thanks,
And serve Him with great humility.
Not to worry. GKC was up on his Christian doctrine.
My recollection is that Chesterton was not a creationist. But it seems you would have to be one to believe that nature is a sibling and not a parent. Otherwise you would have to admit that nature is a parent literally, and a sibling only figuratively. And that’s not much consolation.
I’m about to step out in the garden and begin my daily combat with
my little sisterNature. I do it because I love her. Seriously. I love her beauty (God’s truth, goodness, and beauty). But, let’s not sentimentalize her. Sometimes she’s psychotic and destructive. Sometimes the best we can do is restrain her. At other times, we have to stand aside and let her have her way. Today, it’s battle with the hollyhock weevils. I hope to send them to meet their maker.You may not have, personally, but another component of the Christian worldview is that all of humanity are our brothers and sisters, and some of them have indeed tried to poison, infect, kill, and even eat their fellow children of God.
I’d say it’s easier to love a tornado that kills and maims impersonally than to love an ISIS terrorist who does the same knowingly and willfully, and yet, we are commanded to love even our enemies.
Except, she doesn’t. That’s kinda’ the whole point of Christianity, right? Death, where is thy sting?
I hear you, but ISIS doesn’t threaten to drop baseball sized hail on my garden every afternoon. Nature is a more immediate concern for most of us. Everything from destruction of property to disease and death.
Nature wins the mortal combat, but God wins the eternal victory.
I’ve always thought of GKC in terms of his contradictions, or more precisely, showing me my own. On the surface, he is a grumpy, contrarian polemicist. A layer or two deeper, he is a playful, avuncular sage.
Nature is sustaining. Scratch the surface put in some seeds and you are fed .
Nature is destructive . Without shelter you will freeze to death . Or boil in the Sun . Or drown in a flood . Or die of thirst in a drought .
Hmmmmm, it seems to me the outcome depends to a great extent on my own actions .