Folks who know me know that I am a nature nerd, perhaps to the extreme. I have been watching wildflowers, butterflies, dragonflies, trees, and mushrooms for most of my adult life. I have always viewed my interests in nature as God-given, something that the good Lord hard-wired into me. But something a friend of mine mentioned a few weeks back really got me thinking.
Pete Spino has been a friend of mine for six or seven years. He is a minister in the Catholic Church. Our friendship initially revolved around butterfly interests, but recently has spread to more spiritual matters as well. One day a few weeks back Pete commented to me that he saw my nature interests as a ministry so-to-speak. While I had always thought very strongly that God had placed these nature interests within me, I had never really thought of it as a 'ministry' until Pete mentioned it.
Sometimes my nature interests have met with great frustration. In 2011, I conducted my Big Butterfly Year, a project that I thought a lot of my butterfly friends and acquaintances would take great interest in. They didn't. I wrote Butterfly Rider to document a year's worth of adventures and butterfly sightings, once again thinking it would land on every butterfly enthusiast's book shelf, much like Bob Pyle's The Mariposa Road. It didn't. Pete's comment in passing got me thinking. Perhaps I have not been directing my interests to the right crowd. Maybe there is a group of people who would be more interested in the ramblings of a nature nerd other than the obvious audience.
With Pete's encouragement, and more importantly, I think God's encouragement, I have decided to direct my nature adventures toward my Christian brothers and sisters. Seems to me that 'Christian' and 'nature nerd' are terms that rarely go together. Its almost as if there is a verse in the Bible that discourages believers from being environmentalists, or nature enthusiasts. But I have yet to find that verse. One verse I have found is this, Philipians 4:8 -
"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things."
I cannot think of anything more true, pure, lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy than Creation! Even after God finished creating He looked back at it and "it was very good." (Genesis 1:31)
My hope is that friends and strangers alike will read this blog and choose to pay more attention to the beauty and wonder that God has made. There is so much variety, color, purpose, and design in Creation, just waiting to be noticed. I hope that through the stories and photos I post on this blog, that people will be encouraged to notice. I hope to add to it once every week or two.
Please share this blog with your Christian (and non-Christian) friends. I am confident that ALL will be blessed! I am also planning to re-write Butterfly Rider (to a degree), to give it a different focus. My hope is that the new Butterfly Rider will encourage believers and non-believers, homeschoolers, etc to be excited about participating in citizen science and nature observation.
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