Nature is Wild
The phrase, the wildness of nature, brings memories of waking up in the night to the crash of winter ice breaking up on Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, of hearing the roaring waves during a storm off the Atlantic, of a weather station video of surging flood waters hurling cars and trucks, trees and sections of homes down a city street and of sweet Elsa the lioness of Born Free learning to hunt and kill. Memories tick off—reading this will likely stir your own—perhaps of a tornado near your town or a child being bitten by a dog or scratched by a cat.
The natural world is natural; it continually defies both the gawky depths of humane sentiment and the sublime heights of human morality. A couple days ago, over breakfast tea, I looked out toward the field to see our quite domesticated standard poodle eating found or killed “food.” We will never know how or what—most likely a bird, chipmunk or field mouse. As soon as his meal was complete, with head high like a satisfied country gentlemen, he trotted to the deck door and looked expectantly through the glass.
Like his dutiful doorman, I acquiesced. He gracefully entered with not even a nod of his head, surveyed his indoor domain, walked with dignity to the living room, stretched his paws out, laid down upon the rug, and promptly fell asleep. While I wrote, he slept away, totally relaxed—no curled up digesting for him— he stretched out on his side, full length from head to tail, all four legs extended straight while I wrote and reflected on the difference and similarities between our natures.
In a similar manner natural men and women have natural impulses to satisfy our natural appetites for food and water, sleep and shelter. And, like animals who will fight and kill for territorial or harem rights, so do we. Feral children are an extreme illustration of the reality that all human beings need to be taught, that culture and morality are not innate but passed on from one person to another.
The moral sense that hurting others is wrong and that doing good to others is right is not innate or instinctual. Both Old and New Testament agree that the difference between the beneficent right and injurious wrong needs to be taught and that right choices needs nurture. Let’s look at their witness to this truth.
After Moses received God’s moral laws and instructed the Israelites, he exhorted further.
You shall teach them [God’s words] diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6:7
Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 32:45-46
The Proverbs remind us,
Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6
The prophets acknowledge the need for teachers and foretell the coming of a teacher from God.
Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. Isaiah 2:3 HCSB
And when Jesus set out to fulfill the law and the prophets, He set out as a teacher who lived what He taught and whose teachings were confirmed by God by miracle after miracle. Those who gathered around Him called him Rabbi, which means teacher. References to His teaching are too many to document here.
He taught in the synagogues, He gathered His disciples around Him taught on a mountain top, He taught the Samaritan woman while sitting beside a well, He taught Nicodemus at night. When crowds pressed too close to Him, He stepped into a boat and taught from the sea of Galilee. He taught His disciples whenever a teaching moment arrived. After His death, He taught two of His followers while walking along the road to Emmaus.
Before He died He promised His followers another teacher
But the Comforter, [which is] the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. John 14:26 KJV
After His resurrection and before His ascension He commanded His disciples,
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations . . . Matthew 28: 19 KJV
His apostles did just as He asked. Wherever they went they taught the law of love that Jesus had taught them.
St. Paul is likely the most historically influential teacher of Jesus’ message to the world. Wherever Paul traveled, he taught men of Jesus sacrificial love, of Jesus’ revelation of the true nature of God the Father, and of how Jesus summed up God’s moral laws in His commandment to love God with all our being and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. And Paul repeatedly exhorted those who received the Holy Spirit and lived out his teachings of God’s love to teach one another.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians 3:16
LORD, tame us. Deliver us from the wildness in our natures that does not reflect the love of Jesus. Send us Your teachers to teach us; help us to teach others and most of all, help us to live what we teach. May we receive the teaching of Your Holy Spirit and the grace of His indwelling presence to keep love for You and for others alive, burningly alive and active in our thoughts, words and deeds.
