Its always been a fair assumption that we humans are the most fabulous creatures on earth. Our manipulation of earth’s bounty to suit our purpose and progress leaves me in a state of head-shaking astonishment.
But sometimes, on the highway or as part of the American crowd, I don’t really feel all that fabulous. I feel coerced, restrained, or maybe even ashamed. And then it is that I doubt the earlier assumption about the grandeur of my own kind.
I sometimes wonder, “Is it privilege or curse to be human?”
When my daughters were little I watched with a tinge of sadness as they reigned in their own free spirits to fit in with our crowd.
But then I would take them outside.
And when the little girls were surrounded by trees, rocks, and flowing water, they let the full measure of their spirits out to play. They let themselves be free.
And when the free spirit emerges in nature, this other world of sky, trees, water, and rocks; this world of biological survival and cause and effect, all of this natural world becomes merely the floor on which it dances. A 4 dimensional twirl on the three dimensional surface of everything else there is to see. And 4 rises above 3 every bit as dramatically as 3 rises above 2.
Jumping and splashing in brown water, playing in grey slime, swinging, laughing . . . the free human spirit disturbs the natural monotony, where things are so competitive, repetitive, competitive, repetitive.
All these other life forms and chunks of matter hold on to existence by the skin of their teeth, while these little free spirits dance and twirl above it all.
Luminous.
Made in the image of light itself.
Precious in their Maker’s sight.
The sunrise is good.
The waters are good.
The trees and animals are good.
The lights in the night sky are good.
But this last idea of creation, this human spirit, is not just good.
It is Very good.
And as much as I love this natural world of ours in Richmond, when I find it dimensionally diminished by other presences, I know those presences must be quite wonderful.
They are.
We are.
This is the therapy I seek, and why I go outside.
Outside I restore the conviction that we humans are selected, whether by Nature Herself or something beyond, for a special role on earth that involves something more meaningful than swarming and consuming.
Outside, I believe again in the significance and wonder of being human.
So make sure you and your little ones get out there this summer!
Check out these summer camp offerings from Open Space Education, our special partner in outdoor learning. Come hang out with us at Camp Truetimber this summer and we will all discover just how supernatural we are!
