nature on Education

Have you ever heard of the Greatest Books of the Western World collection? Published by Encyclopedia Britannica in 1954, this comprehensive series was edited by Robert Hutchins and Mortimer J. A...

For most of the late twentieth century, political scientists embraced blank-slate theories in which people soaked up the ideology of their parents or the TV programs they watched. Some political scien...

Make a point of watching quality documentaries: a study by the BBC and the University of California, Berkeley, found that viewing nature programmes increased feelings of awe, amusement and joy while r...

Historically the West has tended to throw its chief emphasis upon doing and the East upon being. . . . Were human nature perfect there would be no discrepancy between being and doing. The unfallen man...

The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.

[A gardener cultivates soil more than plants.] He lives buried in the ground. He builds his monument in a heap of compost. If he came into the Garden of Eden he would sniff excitedly and say: ‘Good Lo...

Charles Darwin, known for his theory of natural selection, noticed that his later life included a “loss of happiness.” While he never acknowledged that it might have been related to his changing world...

Human flourishing is first and foremost a flourishing of relationships—our relationship with God and with others. But human flourishing is also a product of fruitful work that reflects our God who wor...

The scholastics used to say: Homo non proprie humanus sed superhumanus est —which means that to be properly human, you must go beyond the merely human.

Whenever I have encountered any kind of deep problem with civilization anywhere in the world—be it the logging of rain forests, ethnic or religious intolerance or the brutal destruction of a cultural ...

I’ve been reading Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What . Miller took this point to an even further extreme. In his book, he tells a story about one occasion when he was speaking to a class at...

For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Sea of Galilee to be a lake and classifies other fresh or mostly fresh water locations together under the same banner. The poin...

For purposes of practicality and relatability, this series considers the Sea of Galilee to be a lake and classifies other fresh or mostly fresh water locations together under the same banner. The poin...

Many Israelites Had Leprosy, but Naaman Was Healed As we go from mountains to fresh water, we go from Elijah to Elisha.  Despite having a double dose of Elijah’s power and a fraction of his hair, Eli...

Let him who possesses a field, so partake of its yearly fruits, that he may not suffer the ground to be injured by his negligence; but let him endeavor to hand it down to posterity as he received it, ...

The more enlightened we are, the more greatness and vileness we discover in man.

It’s an argument that may never be fully resolved, but scientific research has shown what most of us probably already suspected: there is some truth to both perspectives. One study focused on factors ...

Nature, the world, has no value, no interest for Christians. The Christian thinks only of himself and the salvation of his soul.

Dangerous levels of exhaustion usually accumulate over a longer period of time in which we are consistently living beyond human limits, functioning outside our giftedness, or not paying attention to t...

Eternity won't be long enough to learn all that God is or praise Him for all that He has done.

We admit that the same nature exists in every race, and the same virtue.

Worldviews are like belly buttons. Everyone has one, but we don’t talk about them very often. Or perhaps it would be better to say that worldviews are like cerebellums: everyone has one and we can’t l...

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming sp...

Every human being, each in their own way, has the same glory, and this glory is incomparably greater than the glory of any distinction they could struggle themselves into.

The Country is both the Philosopher's Garden and his Library, in which he Reads and Contemplates the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God.

In this excerpt of a poem by William Wordsworth, the poet describes our yearning for life beyond this life. Our desire for something greater than ourselves: Whether we be young or old, Our desti...

Invitations are powerful. Like tides, they ebb and flow, shaping the contours of our existence. Some invitations we desperately want but never get—“Will you marry me?” or “Would you consider a promoti...

It would go a long way to caution and direct people in their use of the world that they would better studied and known in the creation of it. For how could man find the confidence to abuse it, while t...

O Great Spirit, whose breath gives life to the world, and whose voice is heard in the soft breeze; We need your strength and wisdom. Cause us to walk in beauty. Give us the eyes ever to behold the red...

O heavenly Father, who has filled the world with beauty: Open our eyes to your gracious hand in all your works; so that, rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness; for ...