Yes, the natural world is the first and primary Bible. We have not honored it, so how could we, or would we, know how to honor and properly use the second Bible, when it was written.
Interpretation
The natural world is a fundamental source of wisdom and guidance that we often overlook.
In this quote, Richard Rohr emphasizes the importance of the natural world as a primary teacher and source of spiritual truths. He suggests that our disconnect from nature hinders our understanding of deeper spiritual texts, implying that honoring nature is essential for comprehending and respecting the wisdom contained within subsequent religious or philosophical writings.
In practice
In a speech about environmental conservation, you could use this quote to highlight the spiritual significance of nature.
My scientist friends have come up with things like 'principles of uncertainty' and dark holes. They're willing to live inside imagined hypotheses and theories. But many religious folks insist on answers that are always true. We love closure, resolution and clarity, while thinking that we are people of 'faith'! How strange that the very word 'faith' has come to mean its exact opposite.
The gift of darkness draws you to know God’s presence beyond what thought, imagination, or sensory feeling can comprehend.
I cannot illustrate huge differences between male and female spiritualities except in their starting points, style and fascinations along the way. This is significant, however, and has huge pastoral implications: men must be challenged in the world of doing; women must be challenged in the world of relating.
Much of the Christian religion has largely become “holding on” instead of letting go. But God, it seems to me, does the holding on (to us!), and we must learn the letting go (of everything else).
We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.
I've had the good fortune of teaching and preaching across much of the globe, while also struggling to make sense of my experience in my own tiny world.
Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still they are, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness.
I'm really quite simple. I plant flowers and watch them grow... I stay at home and watch the river flow.
The lark that shuns on lofty boughs to build, Her humble nest, lies silent in the field.
For every human illness, somewhere in the world there exists a plant which is the cure.
When they turned off, it was still early in the pink and green fields. The fumes of morning, sweet and bitter, sprang up where they walked. The insects ticked softly, their strength in reserve; butterflies chopped the air, going to the east, and the birds flew carelessly and sang by fits and starts, not the way they did in the evening in sustained and drowsy songs.
Nature Cure is so simple easy and cheap.....this system of treatment should be used.
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