Enjoying Nature

Thirty years ago, the Ensign published an article called "Discovering Nature" By Sharon Dequer
in the June 1977 issue. One thing she says is:

Think of the attitudes parents convey to children in such experiences, not necessarily attitudes about thunderstorms or snakes, but about life and the joy of living! Spiritual experiences can’t be staged, but one fruitful avenue that involves our children and ourselves in inspiring experiences is to explore—fully and enthusiastically—God’s creations. In the course of growing up we tend to acquire a worldly sophistication that dampens this enthusiastic sense of wonder about nearly everything. Cultivating wonder about nature heightens our appreciation of all creation and begins to break down our artificial distinction between things temporal and spiritual. (See D&C 29:34–35.)

Sister Dequer offers some suggestions for exploring nature:

A good way to begin discovering nature is by becoming more “sense-able.”

Teach your eyes, for example, to see, not just to look. Become alert for movement, large and small, in the grass, in the sky, at the borders of your vision. Look for colors that differ from their surroundings and for subtle changes and mixtures of hue. (There must be a hundred shades of green or brown in any summery scene). Look for shapes that seemingly don’t belong—a bird-shape or pine cone amid the fine branchlets of a tree.

Carry a small mirror with a hole at one edge on your adventure walks. Use it to get a worm’s eye view of the underside of a mushroom or the inside of a hollow tree. Put a long stick into the mirror hole and reach up for a bird’s eye view of a nest and its contents.

At night, hold a flashlight in front of your nose and scan with the beam; you’ll catch the gleam of reflected eyeshine in grass, bushes, gravel—anywhere. Possibly hundreds of creatures are looking at you: moths, beetles, spiders, frogs, mice, cats, raccoons—each with its own sparkly or glowing eyeshine color, like jewels in the night.

Then turn out the light. Although in that narrow beam you can see clearly, without it your eyes will quickly become dark-adapted, and you will see vastly more.

Concentrate on smells. Sample the breeze. Then take your nose up close and sniff the bark of trees. Different species often have characteristic odors (vanilla, cinnamon, or just pungent, sweet, indescribable). Unlock the distinctive qualities of leaves by crushing one, or (better for the plant) by rubbing it firmly between your fingers.

Experiment with taste and touch. Close your eyes and let someone put an object in your hands. What shape is it? What size and texture? Is it wet, dry, smooth, sticky, rough, furry, brittle, flexible, heavy, light? Smell it; brush it against your cheek. You might not know what it is, but could you find it again amid a number of other, possibly similar objects? Making a more complex game of it, could someone else identify your object from just your description?

Feeling the shapes of plant stems may bring you some surprises. Although most are round, some are square (the mints), and others, found in damp places, are triangular (sedges have edges).

Her suggestions can bring you to an appreciation of nature without turning it into "dully labeling countless plants and animals and reciting collections of detailed bits of lore". Not that a more scientific approach is dull to some of us! Nevertheless, it is good to sometimes just enjoy what's out there as it is.

This kind of exploring nature can be done anywhere--in a backyard, a park, a small flowerbed, or a tree. You can go out at night and look at the moon and stars. You can observe pets and, yes, even household pests (before disposing of them in whatever way suits your sensibilities)!

In your exploring, you will feed your spiritual self in surprising ways. Also, see my posts here at Scholar and here at Writing Blog, my other blogs, for more information on this topic.

Religion and Science and Philosophy and...

I would certainly classify myself as a religious LDS conservative. At the same time, I enjoy learning about science, philosophy, math, physics, politics, history, and many other subjects. I do not feel that any of these things are off limits to the religious soul.

I know that I do not see eye to eye with a number of the citizens of the Bloggernacle, but I think that is a good thing. If there is diversity in thought and opinion and knowledge, then we have something to think about and to discuss.

I firmly believe that our Heavenly Father wants us to study and learn about many subjects. He wants us to exercise our minds and use our thought processes. That we may come to different conclusions is not a bad thing. There are any number of areas wherein the Lord has not given us definitive information yet. Some questions may well not be answered until the Millenium or later. I believe that the Lord meant for our learning to be a growth process. He means for us to think things through and reach the best conclusions we can. If others disagree, we can restudy and rethink, but if we are still convinced of our position, that is fine. We may be right about some things, the others may be right about other things. We will all have learned and thought and exercised our brains.

Being a conservative Mormon does not mean that I reject science or philosophy or any other subject. It may mean, though, that I do not agree with some statements or ideas. I would say that we should not jump to conclusions about one another. We should also enjoy the difference of opinion and idea. What would we talk about if we all thought alike?!

There are so many facts and ideas out there in the world. It is a neverending process to learn even one subject because there are always new discoveries, new ideas, and new information coming out.

I would hope that we do not neglect the gospel in our pursuit of secular learning. We are all here for a purpose--to learn and grow and become like our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. This certainly includes secular learning, but does not mean that we should reject religious or gospel learning. We can apply our reasoning to the gospel as well as to other topics, but let us not forget that faith plays an important role in truly understanding the things of God.

There will always be room for differences of opinion as long as we are in this mortal life. These differences can help us learn to think, to sort out ideas, to make sense of a great many things. That what is sense to one is nonsense to another should not invite derision or dismissal, but rather respect and listening and learning.

Learning and study and education is very important to me, but not more important than the gospel. I consider those things to be a part of the gospel, as is all truth and learning. We cannot know everything now, but we can certainly learn a lot and we can learn to think things through.

What are some things that you have learned that are important to you? These can be secular or religous or some combination of the two. I am just interested to know what people think.

A Few Thoughts on Current Events

Our world grows more and more complicated, with many events and trends competing for our attention and our time.

Regarding the bird flu, a possible pandemic is of great concern. From what I have heard, a vaccine cannot even be started until enough victims of human-to-human transmission exist to provide the virus form needed to prepare the vaccine. Then it would take months/years to make enough vaccine to begin vaccinating the public. One suggestion I have heard is that if every family had a minimum of 2 weeks of food/water/other necessities stored--and preferrably 4-6 weeks' worth--then if there was an outbreak, people could stay home, out of the way of infection, until it had blown over. That would be something each of us could do that would have a realistic chance of lessening the impact of the spread of bird flu. Naturally, it also reminds me that there are more uses for storing food and other necessities than just some end-of-the-world scenario and that our prophets, President Hinckley and his predecessors, are very much worth listening to.

Iraq. Views are all over the place on this topic. It is not an easy war, not a simple war. But I feel that we are doing a good thing in rescuing the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein and his sons and their ilk. There are insurgents and they are doing damage, but they are the minority. I also feel we have at least partially disrupted terrorist activity.

Education. I am not affiliated with any school or college. I am not a student. I have no husband or children to be students. One might say I am a spectator. I am greatly concerned, though, when I read that most teachers/professors are liberal/leftist/Marxist in their views and that conservative views are shut out, denounced, ignored. I thought education was meant to be a true mix of a wide variety of viewpoints. I thought education meant learning to think things through and reach our own conclusions. Are students truly being taught those things or are they being indoctrinated in leftist ideals with no acknowledgment given that there are other views, other ideals? Are students limited in what they can study and write about if they want to succeed in academia? If so, how does that foster truth? How does that open the field to all sorts of ideas in the search for solutions to problems that society faces?

Science. One likes to think that science is objective, realistic, truthful. But is the competition for grants and other funding from the government and other sources causing certain theories to be emphasized, regardless of the truth, regardless of the evidence? Is there too much outside influence dictating what science "should" find?

Politics. On both sides of the aisle, it seems there is too much political rhetoric and not enough real debate of real issues. Whenever one or the other party is involved in a scandal of some sort, the other party is often all over it, pointing fingers and saying, "See? We're better than they are!" Only the next time, the positions are reversed. I long for simple discussion of real issues, don't you? What can we do to improve society? What about economics? Education? Public health? Foreign policy? What solutions have the best chance of succeeding, never minding their political source?

What can we, as individual citizens, do? It's almost impossible to be active in all the various issues, but we could at least choose one that is near and dear to our hearts and minds and become active in that issue. Join a responsible group that fits your ideals. Write letters/emails. Blog. Discuss with friends and neighbors. Write articles or a book for publication. You may not succeed in everything, but you could very well make a difference. Whatever sincere views we hold, if we will get them out there and support them, others could get a real feel for the issue from all sides and begin to find solutions.

My two cents. Respectful comments supporting any and all viewpoints are welcomed.

An Amoeba-Sized Post on Evolution

I don't really have anything scintillating to discuss about evolution, but I have enjoyed the post and comments over at M* and wanted to link to that in case anyone missed it.

I have also added two sites to my sidebar under "Science," one for (Talk Origins) and one against (Science Against Evolution). Yeah, I carry the fairness thing to extremes sometimes! ;>D

I personally do not believe that evolution is the answer. And, yes, I am aware that many people think I am ignorant, uneducated, or silly. But that's the way it goes. I am not offended.

Back to the M* discussion, it was interesting with several participants and a number of links to sites and talks, so I wanted to point it out. Enjoy.

Evolution?

In my constant search for knowledge of all kinds, I have come up against a brick wall with the topic of evolution. I have never felt it was the right answer, but it seems like all the mainstream science material starts with an assumption that evolution is true. I have wanted to read other viewpoints on this and have finally located some resources. I am listing them below because I think that it is good to look at all sides of any question.

First is a website, Science Against Evolution.

My other resources so far are four books:

Kicking the Sacred Cow by James P. Hogan
Tornado in a Junkyard by James Perloff
Refuting Evolution by Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D.
Refuting Evolution 2 by Jonathan Sarfati, Ph.D.

Kicking the Sacred Cow talks about other science issues, as well as evolution.

So far, I have read a few articles on the website and the book, Tornado in a Junkyard. And, yes, I have heard people say they can debunk all this stuff with one hand tied behind their backs, but so far, no one has actually done any debunking. I would prefer to find my own way through this, anyway, but I did want to list the resources in case anyone else is interested in reading some different material than that which is so readily available. The links for the books are to Barnes & Noble and the customer reviews range over the spectrum. Amazon likely has reviews, as well. I don’t care to debate the topic, though if anyone wants to post a comment, that is fine. Naturally, I would welcome references to other sources of information. At this stage, I am simply wanting to read and research.