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Glimpsing The Sacred In Wonder

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David Gregory

Glimpsing The Sacred In Wonder

Playfulness and Communion.

An invitation to deeper attentiveness: exploring how science, faith, and the natural world reveal wonder, humility, and responsibility – calling us to live with care, gratitude, and hope within Earth’s fragile, interconnected community of life.

Cycling along a stream that runs through the parkland and forest of Milton Keynes, the UK city where I live, I came to an abrupt halt. Something wonderous had caught my attention. A Kingfisher sitting on the branch of a tree. Still, attentive, hanging over the waters. Stillness and attentiveness that connected us. A sacred moment, all too quickly over as perhaps are all sacred moments. A flash of blue glinting in the sunshine, it swooped fast and low over the stream, quickly lost to my view among the trees.

The Kingfisher is well named, capturing its behaviour and vibrant splendour. In the Bible God invites Adam to be attentive to the natural world. Bringing the animals before him ‘to see what he would name them’ (Genesis 1:19). Attentiveness connects humans with the Creator and a wonderous world that God declares good. 

Humans have deepened their attentiveness to the world around them through God’s gift of science. New windows have been opened to the splendour of the cosmos, near and far, large and small; of the beauty and complexity of life among which we live – beyond Adam’s knowing, even beyond our naming. Attentiveness evokes a louder, deeper ‘wow’ that responds to the wonderous garden that the Earth is: a good place, with a just right atmosphere and just the right temperature, just the right magnetic field and moon; interweaving factors allowing life in its splendour to flourish through the long journey of the Earth. The imaginative creativity of human science meets that of the divine artist, giving glimpses of the signs of God’s grace through the wonder of it all. Leading to humility?  And gratitude? 

“Attentiveness connects humans with the Creator and a wonderous world that God declares good.”

Today through God’s gift of science, we see the wonderous diversity of life in wider, deeper ways than our ancestors did, inviting us to encounter divine purpose and shaping of the world as we understand the role evolution has played in bringing the world to be. In the Bible, a troubled man, Job, is taken by the God on a tour of the wonders of the natural world. Just as we are awed by the stunning images of nature documentaries, he too was captivated. Yet is our response the same as his?  For at the end, Job declares, ‘My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you’ (Job 42:5). Our view is wider, deeper, higher, broader. Yet can the same be said of our attentiveness. Our thankfulness? 

The world in which we live, and the life we share it with is shaped by God through the life of the Son of God, Jesus. ‘For in him all things were created … created through him and for him … in him all things hold together’ (Colossians 1:16,17). The beauty and glory of nature hints at this divine shaping. But what of the brokenness and loss seen in the long tragedy of life, remembered as fossils that reveal equally wonderous ages now long past? We still find and experience pain alongside beauty in our world. For while the Kingfisher is well named for its splendour, what would the fish in the stream name it?   

Beyond beauty, perhaps God is glimpsed within the loss and hope of it all. In the catastrophe of mass extinctions, life falls yet rises again in new and imaginative forms. This is a story of life held long in hope by the pattern of Easter. Death and resurrection, revealing the love of God for the world within its chaotic dance between order and disorder; his deep sharing in its suffering, his continual creative Spirit at work bringing it towards life and hope.  

Into the dance of the world, stepped the one who gives it life. Jesus, the divine, became ‘flesh and made his dwelling among us’ (John 1:14). Affirming the value of all forms of life, each part uniquely expresses God’s creative imagination, fitting within his purpose in ways that we do and do not perceive, affirming One from among the vast menagerie of life – One whose creativity, expressed in many ways including science, reflects that of the Creator. Jesus sees our world and the cosmos more fully and deeply than our satellites and scientific instruments allow. Yet he comes and sees the wonder of life through our eyes so that we might see it through his.  

"Beyond beauty, perhaps God is glimpsed within the loss and hope of it all."

Jesus lived as one of us, a sign of the connection between the divine and all that is living, the divine being attentive to that which is created in a new way and inviting us to attentiveness and to our part in the purposes of God. Too often we attend to our needs and security before those of our neighbours’, ahead of the community of life with whom we share the Earth.  

Too often we use our science and technical abilities to take for ourselves rather than delight over the divine wonder they reveal. In the Bible, humans were expelled from the Forest of Eden by their own folly. Now, by our continued folly, we expel others too. Long ago we named ‘the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field’ (Gen 2:20). But how might the animals name us in the world we are creating? 

The Bible’s story ends with a ‘river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing … down the middle of the street of the city’ (Rev 22:1,2). As future generations pause by the stream winding through my city, will they have a chance to be attentive to the Kingfisher, a sign of the wonderful creativity of God in which our, and all life on Earth, is woven? Held in hope by God through falling and rising, it faces death yet is pulled towards fulness of life through divine presence: ‘When you send your Spirit they are created, and you renew the face of the Earth’ (Psalm 104:30).  

That same Spirit is at work in our lives, inviting us to share with God in bringing hope to people and the community of life with whom we share the Earth. Turning from lives that increase the disorder of the world, let’s live in ways that collaborate with the Creator to bring peace to the Earth. Now. And for the future. 

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David Gregory

David is a Baptist minister with a background in meteorology and climate science. He serves as Baptist Missioner for Science and Environment and convenes the Baptist Union Environment Network. His recent book, Divine Windows – Seeing God through the lens of science, was published by the Bible Reading Fellowship in July 2025 (https://www.brfresources.org.uk/) and explores how God might be glimpsed in the imagery of science through themes of wonder, play and communion. He is also the writer and presenter of the four-part film series ‘God Saw That It Was Good’ (www.gstiwg.co.uk), soon to be shown on the TBN UK TV channel. The blog was adapted from the last episode, ‘Life’.

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Migration

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Dave Bookless

Migration

Facing Migration With Wonder, Worry And Welcome.

From Arctic Terns crossing the globe to millions of people displaced by conflict and climate change, migration is one of nature and humanity’s defining stories. This reflection explores the wonder of migration, the growing threats faced by both wildlife and human migrants, and what a Christian response might look like through three themes: wonder, worry, and welcome.

Through this year, we’ve been looking at the natural world from micro to macro, from tiny organisms to global ecosystems. Migration is a theme that links both. Butterflies cross continents; songbirds weighing a few grams fly thousands of miles. Some of the statistics are extraordinary:  

  • Arctic Terns Sterna paradisaea regularly fly 90,000 km per year between the Arctic and Antarctic, which means in a lifetime they may fly the equivalent of to the moon and back three times![i]  
  • A satellite-tagged Bar-tailed Godwit Limosa lapponica entered the book of Guinness World Records after flying 11 days nonstop from Alaska to Tasmania, a distance of 13,560 kilometres.[ii] 

Another kind of migration has also been in the news. Humans have always migrated, locally and globally, driven by conflict, economic and environmental factors. The biblical people of Israel remembered, ‘my father was a wandering Aramean’.[iii] Yet today, we live in an era of unprecedented human migration. The number of international migrants within the Americas alone grew from 34.8 million in 1990 to 78.7 million by mid-2024.[iv] Environmental changes, particularly human-induced climate change, have become ‘the great displacer’. Predictions of climate refugees and migrants by 2050 vary hugely, with some suggesting over 1 billion. A median estimate, based on multiple studies, suggests over 170 million migrants within regions – not including intercontinental migrants.[v]  

“On a changing planet, with increasingly unstable ecosystems, both human and nonhuman migrants are suffering.”

I’ve been reflecting on how migrating birds and butterflies cross national borders with impunity whilst human migrants face political barriers. Yet, on a changing planet, with increasingly unstable ecosystems, both human and nonhuman migrants are suffering. More than 30,000 people drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean between 2014 and 2024, with at least another 12,000 missing, presumed drowned.[vi] The western race of the Monarch butterfly has lost an estimated 99.9% of its population.[vii] The latest estimate of the annual Wildebeest migration in the Serengeti-Mara is under 600,000, less than 50% of previous estimates.[viii] Migratory birds face huge challenges with increasing desertification, extreme weather and changes to phenology (the flowering dates of plants).[ix] 

So, as Christians, how should we respond to migration? I want to suggest three simple ideas that perhaps relate to both human and wildlife migration. 

“The practical result of wonder and worry is welcome.”

WONDER 

As a bird-ringer (bander), I have the privilege of holding tiny warblers that have navigated across oceans, mountain ranges and deserts to return to their breeding grounds. Even the most hardened atheist can have moments of awe at the miracle of migration. Let’s reawaken that childlike sense of joyful wonder. Let’s also reflect on the dangerous, desperate journeys made by those whose crops have failed, whose land is flooded or dried out, and who seek a better life. 

WORRY 

The statistics on wildlife migration are deeply disturbing in a world of habitat destruction, chaotic weather and changing climate. Worry may not be the best word, but we should lament and mourn at what our human choices have done to God’s world. Surely, we should also be deeply concerned at the suffering of vulnerable refugees and asylum seekers and the very real political challenges caused by mass migration? Words written thousands of years ago still speak to us: ‘The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself.’[x] 

WELCOME 

The practical result of wonder and worry is welcome. We are called to create spaces and communities where migrants can thrive. Jesus said, ‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.’[xi] I like to apply those words to both nonhuman and human migrants. Our little London church faced this very recently when our newest member, an Iranian refugee, was suddenly made homeless and needed very practical help. Whether it’s putting up nest boxes for Swifts, planting for pollinators, protecting overwintering sites in Mexico or Congo, or supporting A Rocha’s critically important projects and research, we are called to create a welcoming home for all. 

Finally, the prophet Jeremiah wrote: ‘Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of the Lord.’[xii] This somewhat unfavourable comparison with migratory birds should challenge us to seek God’s heart for all migrants, whether insects, birds or our fellow human mammals. 

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Dave Bookless

Dave is Director of Theology for A Rocha International, where he works to embed creation care into international Christian organizations, theological institutions, and mission movements. His past roles with A Rocha include being an International Trustee and the co-founder of A Rocha UK (with his wife Anne). He has a PhD from Cambridge University on biblical theology and biodiversity conservation, and has contributed to many books and articles, including Planetwise, available in six languages. Born and raised in India, Dave has a love for Indian food, Indian culture and Indian Christianity. Dave is also a qualified bird-ringer and loves birding, islands, running and mountains.

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protect a forest

How Do You Protect A Forest?

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Anna Radkovic

How Do You Protect A Forest?

Faith, Conservation And Conflict In Kenya’s Forests

In Kenya’s Dakatcha Woodlands, protecting biodiversity is far more complex than drawing boundaries around nature. This reflection explores the realities of conservation amid climate change, land insecurity, poverty and human conflict, asking what it means to care for both people and creation in a fragile landscape. Through the challenges facing A Rocha Kenya, it considers how faith, justice and environmental stewardship can coexist in an increasingly pressured world.

How do you protect a forest?

That’s the question A Rocha Kenya is wrestling with in the Dakatcha Woodlands on the coast of Kenya. That’s the question facing the world as our planet undergoes a global biodiversity crisis with over one million species at risk of extinction.[1]

How do you create resilient landscape where biodiversity and people can thrive together?

In Australia, it was relatively straightforward. I worked for a few years with Cassinia Environmental; as long as we had enough money, we could buy land with good quality habitat, change the legal status of the land to conservation and, with a bit of weeding, that would be that. That land was now protected in perpetuity for conservation. Provided there were no natural disasters or anarchy we could pretty much set and forget. We could trust the legal systems and government structures and community attitudes to property ownership to protect the biodiversity of that property.

No so in Kenya, it’s an altogether different story!  Protecting land in Kenya is complicated. A Rocha Kenya has been purchasing land to create a nature reserve since 2014. However, the government has not yet issued land titles for any of the property we have purchased. We can only buy the right to own the land – an agreement witnessed by a lawyer – not the land itself. A risky business. The alternative is doing nothing so we take the risk. More challenging, we’re not buying from one land owner in one clean deal, but from hundreds of landowners with complicated family dynamics and disagreements about who owns the land. After hours and days and weeks of conversations with cousins and brothers and village chiefs we finally locate the official owner of the land. They might own 100 acres but only want to sell 10 acres at a time to manage their finances. Instead of one deal to secure the 100 acres, we need to strike 10 deals. This increases the time and human resources needed, increases the risk of land degradation before we can complete the purchase and increases the price for every portion of land. Sometimes, when a price has been agreed on for the land but before the process is finalised, a cousin or nephew of the landowner will hear about the deal and cut down all the large old trees to sell for timber or charcoal for a bit of extra cash, undermining our original intent for purchasing the land.

"Protecting our forest is complicated."

Finally, A Rocha Kenya owns the rights to the land, the community recognizes the land ownership and we can begin managing the property for conservation. The complications continue. In a cash-poor economy, a forest is a big temptation for any young lad with a chainsaw and a motorbike to earn a bit of extra money. We have had to employ a team of 12 to regularly patrol our land for illegal activities. Every day they spread out across our Reserve, preventing poachers from helping themselves to our resources. We even have to protect our grass.  In Kenya, livestock are grazed across the landscape. The world is their oyster. Anywhere there’s a spare bit of grass, you’ll find a goat or cow chomping away. These guys don’t even know what fences are. For the local community, we don’t mind them grazing in our reserve. We’ve got good relationships with most people and the herds are only 5-15 head of livestock. Low impact grazing is not a problem and we’re happy to share our reserve with the local community – as landowners we are now part of the community, after all.

However, word has got out that Dakatcha grass is good. From 2020, thousands of livestock started moving into our Reserve. Sheep, goats, cows and camels bulldoze through the landscape, demolishing community crops and protected biodiversity alike. Dozens of herders from the north now bring their livestock every year to graze in this green space we have preserved. Climate change means that the north of Kenya is growing drier every year so the herders and their livestock hit the road in search of food. Increased privatization of land, a growing population and no national land use strategy means that there aren’t that many spaces left for the herders to go. Their traditional way of life is becoming increasingly difficult. Conflicts with other communities kept them moving in search of feed for their herds. And now they’re in our home. We have tried to meet with them, talk with them, explain to them they’re trespassing but they don’t want to listen. They don’t want to go. The community are frustrated, and the situation is becoming increasingly tense and violent. Last week we recruited 32 police officers to remove 16 different groups of herders and thousands of livestock from our Reserve. Where will they go? We don’t know, but the consensus is that they can’t stay here.

“How can we be people of peace and love and generosity?"

Protecting our forest is complicated.

It is not easy to steward this land we’ve been entrusted with. It’s a messy patchwork of threatened trees and endangered animals and vulnerable people. What does it look like for A Rocha to protect this forest? As conservationists, yes, but primarily as Christians who care for nature and for people. How do we love our neighbour when our neighbour comes with thousands of hungry livestock? How do we defend the cause of the local community and the threatened trees AND the herders – all of whom are at risk and fighting for survival but whose interests seem at odds with one another. How can we be people of peace and love and generosity? How can God’s kingdom come in Dakatcha, on earth as it is in Heaven? How can we protect our Reserve and offer it as a blessing to others? What does it look like for the risen saviour Jesus to be Lord of Dakatcha? What does it look like for us to be His people in this place.

Pray for us as we protect our forest. We protect it for the Sokoke Scops owl to have a safe home. We protect it for the community to have a landscape with healthy ecosystem services. We protect it for the African coast to keep its original, God created habitat. We protect it for the world to have natural spaces that reflect the glory of God. We protect it to worship Christ, who made it, sustains it and redeems it. From hungry cattle to no formal land protection and increased desertification from climate change, the micro to macro challenges feel weighty and far beyond our control. Pray that we would trust all the challenges of every size into God’s able hands and do our bit as His people to protect His forest.

Picture of Anna Radkovic

Anna Radkovic

Anna works with A Rocha Kenya to make Christ known by caring for his creation. She helps the leadership to support and empower the staff. She is also continuing to learn Swahili and some Giriama.

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Noah-blog.jpg

An axe laid to the roots: Invasive plant removal in the Stenis Tract

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Noah Guthrie

An axe laid to the roots: Invasive plant removal in the Stenis Tract

Restoring native woodland through faith-led conservation.

Three A Rocha USA interns work to restore a Texas woodland by removing invasive species such as glossy privet that threaten native biodiversity. Through hands-on conservation, they wrestle with the tension between loving all creation and the necessity of ecological intervention. Grounded in faith, the work seeks restoration of the Stenis Tract into a thriving, diverse ecosystem where native plants and wildlife can flourish once again.

Beside the coiling waters of Bull Creek, three A Rocha USA interns waded through thorns, waging war against the Glossy Privet. As we heaved our shoulders through viper-green barbs, we brandished our weapons: a red flip-saw for hacking, a hawkbill knife for slitting trunks and a weed-wrench for dragging saplings headfirst from the soil.

All three of us were tree-huggers. What could have possibly compelled us to destroy these poor, ill-fated privets in the Southern US? They’re doing what God made them to do – namely, being fruitful and multiplying by their many seeds (Genesis 1:12). But they’re doing it in the wrong place.

The privets were growing in the Stenis Tract of Austin, Texas, a narrow wedge of land between Bull Creek and Spicewood Springs Road. About 57 acres, this area is a mix of open meadow and subtly sloped woodland, with myriad plants weaving through the soil: Spanish Oak, Ashe Juniper and Yaupon Holly, Cedar Sage and Bluebonnets, as well as the Live Oak – burly and mystic, arms undulating like kraken tentacles. By day, hikers and cyclists speed down the path and by night, stags nose their way between the trunks.

And then there are the invaders. King Ranch Bluestem bristles like blanched porcupine quills, Nandina flares its jade and scarlet starbursts, and canopies of privet leaves – perfectly shaped, perfectly polished, perfectly green – blot the sun, smothering the understory. As beautiful as they are, these exotic ornamentals rapidly out-compete local plant-life, lowering the overall health and diversity of the ecosystem.

"What could have possibly compelled us to destroy these poor, ill-fated privets in the Southern US?"

Since 2021, A Rocha USA has gone to great pains to remove these plants from the Stenis Tract – focusing on the privet, since it’s especially prevalent. We’ve joined forces with the Bull Creek Foundation to host more than 15 volunteer work days, employing over 500 volunteer hours to remove over 7,500 invasive plants. Our removal methods include weeding, weed-wrenching and girdling, the latter of which starves a tree over time by removing a ring of phloem tissue from its trunk, cutting off its circulation of nutrients.

In some ways, this systematic destruction of a species is especially hard for us as people of faith. God deems all the plants of Creation ‘good’ (Gen. 1:12), the Psalmist affirms God’s loving provision for trees (Ps. 104:16), and Jesus identifies even ‘the grass of the field’ as recipients of God’s lavish and varicoloured love (Matt. 6:28-30). To girdle a privet, in other words, is to strangle a member of God’s beloved Creation. Yet, girdling is meant to support the healing of the Stenis Tract ecosystem, and the Bible offers a framework for understanding that, too. While Genesis 1 and 2 affirm the innate value of each member of the biotic community, other scriptures affirm the need to uproot certain individuals for the sake of communal flourishing.

Depending on how we interpret Old Testament law, Exodus 21:28 and Deuteronomy 17:2-7 seem to allow for destructive creatures (an ox in one case; a human in the other) to be stoned for the greater good of the Israelite community. This principle also arises in the New Testament, when John the Baptist warns the Pharisees – who oppress the socially vulnerable in Israel – that ‘the axe is laid to the roots of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’ (Matt. 3:10).

If God allows for certain people to be ‘chopped down’, then maybe we can justify doing it to invasive plants as well, as long as we do it with a two-fold love. First, love for the biotic community as a whole, refusing to allow invasives to impede the flourishing of their neighbours.

"If we’re forced to destroy, let it be from a desire for restoration."

Second, love for the invasives themselves, finding ways to honour them even as we’re forced to destroy them. After all, Jesus taught us to love our enemies. This tension between love and extirpation emerges among other members of the global A Rocha family, too. A Rocha Kenya, having noted the over 40,000 invasive crows distributed across the Watamu and Malindi areas in 2024, has used great quantities of avicide to try to thin them out, striving to protect local birds from the crows’ harassment and killings

Meanwhile, A Rocha Aotearoa New Zealand has removed over 14,000 invasive predators from around Mount Karioi, killing off ferrets, opossums, stoats and feral cats for the sake of native Ōi chicks. When we kill certain species, it can be hard to sustain our empathy for them. It’s easy enough to love the native and hate the invasive. What’s harder for us, as Christians, is learning to love both, even when forced to drive one of them out.

In the U.S., our Texas team has explored small ways of honouring the Stenis Tract’s invasive plants. Aside from verbally acknowledging their beauty, we’ve also fashioned laser-engraved ornaments from chopped privet wood, affirming the value of the privet’s life while also shaping it into fresh beauty. Meanwhile, we already see signs of a healthier, more diverse Stenis Tract being born. Sunlight washes through the bones of the privet canopy, painting the forest floor with native green sprouts. Across the meadows, which were once stifled by clots of King Ranch Bluestem, breezes of Bluebonnets revive the soil.

If we’re forced to destroy, let it be from a desire for restoration. If we’re forced to kill, let it be from a desire for rebirth. This is our hope for the Stenis Tract, a little resurrection garden spreading one patch of soil at a time.

If you want to support A Rocha USA’s invasive plant removal, feel free to donate to our Texas Conservation Project!

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Noah Guthrie

Noah supports A Rocha USA’s Churches of Restoration programme in Nashville, coordinating church creation care activities and communications. He brings experience in eco-theology, writing, and habitat restoration to inspire church-led environmental action.

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