Friends,

As a bibliophile, a week that goes by without getting a new book in the mail – or without a trip to the bookstore – is a sad week indeed. I have at least one unread book on my shelves for every book I have read. The journey to become well-read and impressive is long and laborious! “Vanity of vanities: all is vanity!” Evagrius Ponticus, a monk in the 4th century, apparently understood this long ago, when he wrote down this story: “A certain member of what was then considered the circle of the wise once approached the just Anthony and asked him: ‘How do you ever manage to carry on, Father, deprived as you are of the consolation of books?’ His reply: ‘My book, sir philosopher, is the nature of created things, and it is always at hand when I wish to read the words of God.’”

Anthony was not merely trying to remove greed by the endless accumulation of books: he knew his Bible. In Christian theology, our best thinkers and poets have often reflected on the way that God is the author of creation.

As I write this article, I am authoring something that cannot truly be said to be utterly apart from me. Yes, of course, this article will go on to the church website and will have a life of its own, but these words are mine, and they have no origin or substance apart from me as the author. And no doubt, you all will examine this reflection as a reference pointing to its author, and not simply a self-referential, self-created article. This article points to its author. In the same way, when we acknowledge, as Christians have always done, that God is the creator of all things, we acknowledge that the created world points to its author. The world is not God, but neither can it be utterly separated or disassociated from its author; it is not self-created. Its author has left his mark. We, as the reader, are invited to examine the world as a reference pointing to its author.

The writers of our Scriptures knew this, not least the poets. In our Anglican tradition, the service of Morning Prayer begins each day with Psalm 95: “In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also.” And Job, perhaps our oldest book of the Bible, makes the point very beautifully: “But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee.” And the profound Psalm 19 is clearest of all: “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech”. Without a voice with which to speak, creation tells us about our God. In fact, my Old Testament Professor during my undergraduate program told me that if I wanted to understand the Old Testament, I would need to become a farmer. Many of the authors of our Bible, indeed, did not have a Bible themselves: they had creation with which they would converse about God. This is the starting point for theology.

Creation offers the servant of God something different than books. Creation is directly authored by God and is unmediated: in it we receive revelation (called natural theology, for some theologians) for which we do not require the interpretation of another. In this sense, nature itself is offering us a less illusory vision of God and his love. Thus, the vision offered by this story from Evagrius provides the framework for nature itself as a kind of sacrament. If one holds to a sacramental worldview, and if one believes that God is the author of creation, then the “nature of created things” is a prime candidate for a source of our understanding of and contemplation on the possibilities of God. What a book does very well is interpret and point. Indeed, often what books point to, is creation. Creation holds God’s signature – his image – and in it, we, with Anthony and Evagrius, can read the words of God.

-Micah