Some Thoughts on the Sabbath

In the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Morgan Freeman plays a character named Azeem, a Muslim from the middle-east who has escaped from prison with Robin of  Loxley and traveled to England. Robin had been in the middle-east, fighting in the 12th century crusades. In England a young girl asks Azeem if God had painted him. Azeem replies, "For certain."  She asked why.  Azeem responded that Allah loves wondrous varieties.  I've always liked that little exchange - its so indicative of the truth of God's creations. He could have made the earth plain and simple, utilitarian and purely functional, no more than just enough to sustain life while his children lived out their lives.  But instead He created a place of incredible beauty, marvelous variety and amazing diversity, filled with all kinds of color, form and type.  

There isn't just green.  There are a thousand different shades and hues of green.

And He made the eye so that it could take in the incredible beauty of the world He placed us in.  Or at least a better beginning at it than anything man has ever created.  Pictures just don't do the world justice.

 Sometimes as I go about my life, doing the myriad little chores and tasks that make up life, the beauty of the world will suddenly intrude upon my consciousnesses and I'll find myself drawn up short, amazed by the resplendent grace in the scenery around me.

 I love the look, feel, and smell of the mountains, the trees, grasses, shrubs, and bushes, even the weeds have a beauty of their own that adds to the glorious whole.

 Clouds fill the skies in incredible variety, adding to the wonder stretched out below them.

 Rocks, streams, hills, plateaus, mountains.

 Rivers that dig out canyons.

Rain falling in the distance, adding their own sound and smell to the glorious vision of the earth stretched out all around.

 Fountains of water, whether small, trickling out of the rocks,

 Or larger, cascading down a mountain side, carving out a stream.

It is all a wonder to me.  And that's just the earth itself and vegetation growing on it, to say nothing of the animals He placed upon the earth. It is yet another bit of evidence to me of the love of the Lord for us.  That He made this place where we could come, but not only made it but made it a place of such incredible beauty and wonder.  Every little detail working together to renew and sustain itself since the time of creation until now, resilient and replenishing, with such incredible power to recover and heal itself of the thoughtless abuse mankind so often heaps upon the world.

The Lord said, "And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me." (Moses 6:63)  That surely is true - the hand of the Lord is evident in a host of glorious ways in all the beauty of the earth.  The scriptures tell us that our first parents were cast out of paradise and into the world, to fend for themselves.  The expulsion from paradise must be in reference to the fact that we now have to work to get the earth to give up her bounty because the world is still such a paradise to see and experience.  So pleasing and gentle on the eye, on all the senses. This is an incredible world the Lord has placed us in. I can see why the prophet exclaimed, "Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! Thy throne is high in the heavens, and thy power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth".