Everyone Forgets The Part About Creation Being Cursed

Last week, I introduced us to a puzzle: creation gives in abundance—in true fecund nature—but not as we wish. Annie Dillard’s haunting meditation Pilgrim at Tinkers’ Creek is one which stays with me, even as I stand in front of my wonderful office window, which remains shrouded in trees both summer and winter. It stays with me as we paddle on kayaks along Texas waterways, and delve into the forests teeming with life. The Scriptures present this puzzle to us repeatedly: famines, floods, plagues—all signs of something in nature proliferating without end, but doing so in a mismatch of human need. Such themes are not popular to talk about. More frequently, we love stories in which creation provides what we desire, and then some. Robin Wall Kimmerer, in her new book The Serviceberry, builds her case for human reciprocity and generosity off of the example of a berry which performs multiple functions in the natural world. By contrast, the witness which Dillard brings up is a disquieting one,

Last week, I introduced us to a puzzle: creation gives in abundance—in true fecund nature—but not as we wish. Annie Dillard’s haunting meditation Pilgrim at Tinkers’ Creek is one which stays with me, even as I stand in front of my wonderful office window, which remains shrouded in trees both summer and winter. It stays with me as we paddle on kayaks along Texas waterways, and delve into the forests teeming with life. The Scriptures present this puzzle to us repeatedly: famines, floods, plagues—all signs of something in nature proliferating without end, but doing so in a mismatch of human need.