From “Planet Earth” to the beauty of Creation, rediscovering God through the eyes of a child
Father Sam Martin
Vicar General and Vicar for Clergy
One thing kids are happy to point out is that, at a certain age, you can no longer be cool. Having taught high school students for more than a decade, I developed a decent sense of how they thought of me. When I moved into parish ministry, I no longer had regular access to kids’ insightful ways. By the time I got to Wausau, it had been a number of years since I had last taught full time.
One evening, while teaching religious education to the eighth graders, I suddenly wanted to see if I still “had it”—meaning, was I still cool in the eyes of those who are experts about such things? Honestly, the eye roll I got that night was almost audible, and it still makes me laugh every time I think about it. Suffice it to say, I was officially over the hill.
The Holy Spirit at Work
But there was a time when I was better able to relate to young people. Because I was around teenagers so often, I became more familiar with what would work in the classroom and what wouldn’t. For example, I found that students would endure my lectures better if they had something good to look forward to each week. That usually meant that on Friday, we would take a short field trip to the chapel to pray for a while. They didn’t all like it at first, but the Holy Spirit did some amazing things in that time. By the end of the year, even some of the most resistant students admitted that it was about the only quiet time they had, and that they looked forward to it.
After our prayer time, we would return to the classroom to listen to a song and talk about it, or watch a movie clip and reflect on its significance. The goal, besides relaxing a bit, was to engage their creativity and imagination. While that was never a strength of mine, in 2008 I stumbled upon an idea I expected to fail. Someone gave me the DVD series “Planet Earth.” Because nature is sometimes considered a fifth Gospel, I thought showing a portion of it might engage the students’ wonder and awe. At the same time, I worried they would reject it and mock me for thinking they would like it. What happened next continues to stand out as one of the most memorable experiences I ever had as a teacher: They absolutely loved it!
The Beauty of God’s Creation
Having been raised on a farm, I often took for granted the natural beauty that surrounded us day after day. “Let them be born in wonder”—that ancient insight accurately conveys the reality that we have to mature in order to take in the beauty that God created for us. And if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then one of the tasks we have is to live in such a way as to see more and more of the world God created for us.
Something like that happened as the students watched short segments of “Planet Earth” each Friday. They grew quiet and seemed to experience some degree of awe and wonder as they watched the various scenes. Heck, they grew to enjoy it so much that sometimes they would start chanting, usually on a Monday, “Planet Earth, Planet Earth!” I would smile and remind them that this was our Friday treat, one they could earn by behaving and paying attention during my lecture.
The Hidden Work of Grace
When I walk around the diocesan center, a building that is my home for the second time, I often look up at the three inscriptions carved in stone. My favorite, at this juncture in my life, is the one that concludes, “The hope of the harvest lies in the planting.” As a diocese, we are in the planting season, a new springtime, and the growth is remarkable to see. But not all growth is visible.
When we were kids, Dad let us help with the planting. Once, while looking out at the field, we told Dad that it seemed like the corn would never grow. We worried that our work had been in vain. Dad took us out to the field, pulled out his pocketknife and dug into the soil. Sure enough, just a couple of inches underground, he found a corn kernel that had already germinated and was sending up a little shoot. Dad, with the help of nature, taught us that growth often happens, even if you cannot see it.
While watching “Planet Earth,” the kids would sometimes accuse me of always choosing a segment that featured a predator tracking down its prey. They were not entirely wrong. I used those scenes to teach them that God always forgives, human beings sometimes forgive, and nature never forgives.
Maybe a more compassionate lesson comes from learning how to hunt rabbits. When we were young, we had two dogs: Skipper and Peanut. They were not trained to hunt rabbits. When they saw one, they chased it away as fast and as far as they could. Later, Dad got a beagle named Jake. Beagles hunt with their noses, which means they move pretty slowly. When Jake smelled a rabbit, he woofed and started following the trail. Jake was slow, but that let the rabbit hop here, hop there, and pretty soon the rabbit came right back to where it started. The rabbit would make that loop over and over again, all because he didn’t feel pressured by the beagle.
The Hound of Heaven
God has sometimes been called the “Hound of Heaven,” meaning that He never stops pursuing us. But He does so in a way that doesn’t upset us, because He knows we’d run away as fast and as far as we could. Like the beagle, God tracks us slowly, respectfully, but with a patience and persistence that are absolutely unrivaled.
If there is one last lesson from the beauty of nature, it is that it brings us back to the power of imagination. Summer days were just full of adventures. We had so many places to hike, and we could play in the tall grass for hours on end. We would make tunnels through the grass and create small villages complete with roads and plenty of hiding places.
Up on the hill, Dad had deposited some old farm equipment. We mashed it all together into our first spaceship and from there we traveled all over the universe. As we age, it is good to remember that while we inevitably get older on the outside, we’re supposed to get younger on the inside. “Unless you become like children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God.” (Mt 18:3)
Trusting What
We Cannot See
In my life, I’ve been blessed by young people who have repeatedly helped me to see life through their eyes. From “Planet Earth” to life on the farm, the beauty of creation kindles the sort of wonder and awe that keep us young at heart. And even if we are past the age of being “cool,” it’s never too late to become a child of God.