Morningstar Relationship to Nature

[Interpreting Contemporary Pilgrimage as Spiritual Journey or Aesthetic Tourism Along the Appalachian Trail]

Norman Wirzba (2015:p.58) writes a description of the obtrude relationship that occurs between hiker and landscape stating:
               
               When we desire our relationship to nature to be mediated by the expectation that 
               only places deemed pretty or spectacular are worthy of our attention, then we do  
               witness an idolatry that condemns much of the world to neglect or even disparagement.                       What we often fail to realize is that our worship of nature’s beauty, especially our                                 designations of certain kinds of landscapes or creatures as beautiful, is also 
               fundamentally a reduction of the world to the expectations that we bring to it.

Wirzba describes the notion of putting landscape and scenery in a box. That to the human eye, we have conceptualized the idea of what is beautiful and what is not and that is what it is bounded by. Perhaps, Wirzba is emphasizing that there can be no confinement to the beauty and power that nature holds. Similar to the Divine. God cannot be concealed. God cannot have limits. Wirzba also uses the word idolatry, extreme admiration, love, or reverence for something or the worshiping of idols, to describe hikers relationship to landscape. This term has a negative biblical connotation, in which sinners idolize objects of this world when they are called to love their Lord God with all their heart, soul, and mind. Wirzba use of idolatry emphasizes his point that humans tend to reduce the world to the expectations they have and box in landscape, which cannot be achieved. 

Reference: Wirzba, Norman. (2015) From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving Our World. Grand Rapids. Baker Academic.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lett- Own topic- #1

In reflection of the Pacific Crest Trail video, it's amazing to me how united every hiker seems to be. Once you're on the trail it's as if you are apart of a separate universe. In the normal universe, people are labeled by class or what job they have, but on the trail everyone is of equal status and is treated as human. It's beautiful. I loved listening to what motivated each one of the hikers to finish their journey and i loved seeing the reactions once they did reach the end. While i am not sure if i would be able to go on such a journey, videos like this definitely make one get motivated to complete a big task like this. The other thing that fascinated me was that while it seemed many of the hikers were united and taking this trip together, each journey is specific in it's own right. That is what interests me so much about the idea of Long distance hiking. It's very relateable to our everyday walk of life; we all have people we encounter over the course of ou...
Read more

Roberts Phenomenology of Prayer

In chapter three of Phenomenology of Prayer, there are a few paragraphs on to whom a prayer is addressed. It says in the first paragraph, that the people who pray address their prayers to the divine and then wait for a response. So where do the prayers go? The prayers go to God or the divine and then God or the divine sends forth an answer. In another paragraph, a prayer is related to an artist and their painting. Sometimes an artist paints with a specific audience or person in mind. Sometimes it is a gift for a specific person. Other times, the artist paints without an audience. Or, the painter has someone in which they are painting for but does not disclose it. This is related to prayer because sometimes a person prays with a specific target in mind but other times, they are unsure of who the target should or can be. This metaphor was helpful in the understanding of to whom a prayer is addressed.
Read more

Phenomenology of Prayer#1

The first chapter of this book focuses on prayer with a decentered self. I think that this is necessary when it comes to praying seriously. When praying you are talking to a higher being. A being that you believe is more powerful than you. So you shouldn't be focused on yourself when you pray but your relationship to whatever you're praying towards. If you think of yourself while you're praying it defeats the purpose of praying.
Read more