Nature's Lessons--A Paragraph a Day

 Nature always takes her time.  Great oaks don't become great overnight.  They also lose a lot of leaves, branches, and bark in the process of becoming great.    -Andrew Matthews


Many of the quotations and passages that I read about nature have a similar focus--nature does things as nature does things, and things turn out as they're supposed to.  And in the process, things of nature go through some rather difficult challenges and trials.  But in theory, they always end up where they're supposed to.  In my life, I've lost my share of branches and leaves and bark, but I'm okay.  I'm doing work that's fulfilling and I'm in a relationship that's very healthy.  I live in a home that I love and I have enough to eat, to wear, and to share, and even a lot of excess stuff that I don't really need, but that I do appreciate a lot.  If I had given up at the first sign of adversity, if I had become discouraged by the first autumn's loss of all my leaves, if I had found the loss of some branches and bark to be unbearable, I never would have made it to where I am.  And if this metaphor from nature is valid for me and can be applied to my life and experiences, it's important that I look for other lessons that nature can teach me.  I may not be a great oak one day, but how about a really nice cypress, or a pear tree that bears fruit to share with people and animals?  I am going to face obstacles and difficulties, but it's important that I look past them to what I am to become, instead of just what I happen to be today.

Romanticizing Nature--A Paragraph a Day

I really love nature--going for walks and runs and hikes and spending time in forests and in water and on a bike and in the desert.  I think it's kind of funny, though, how we tend to romanticize almost everything to do with nature, and how we claim that nature's ways are always the best ways.  All we need to do to get a great idea of just how incredibly dangerous and cruel nature can be is watch a good program on nature to see how many animals kill each other just for the chance to mate; how many animals are killed as food when they were just minding their own business; how some animals actually use other animals' bodies as food for their young.  Animals tend to be somewhat nervous and paranoid, unless they're on top of the food chain, for they never know what's around that wants to eat them.  I think nature is wonderful, but I certainly wouldn't want to be a bird or an insect or a mammal that at any moment can become someone else's food.  I think I'm fine just where I'm at, doing just what I'm doing, and I have no romantic notions like we hear in the song that says, "I want to live like animals/careless and free," for example.  Just because they don't have to get jobs or pay taxes or go to school doesn't mean that an animal's life is careless.  Their cares tend to be a little more drastic than ours do, because there are very few animals that don't face the possibilities of becoming someone else's dinner.