What Watching Hours of David Attenborough Taught Me about God
I am a huge fan of BBC Earth. I mean have you seen the Planet Earth Series? or LIFE? or FROZEN PLANET? or DEEP BLUE? and these are only the ones I remember without googling. BBC Earth has moved us into a whole new era of nature documentaries. They are beautiful. I want to watch them all on a big screen. They do justice to the majesty of nature and its inhabitants and its glorious occurrences: the violence, the adrenalin, the sophistication. They can make you watch frogs and admire their beauty. FROGS. You know the fellas known for being ugly. So much so that some of our European neighbors made up stories about misfortunate girls having to kiss them to marry a prince. Those frogs. But boy are they beautiful! Especially when you have Sir David telling you why this one little animal is incredibly strong, and resilient. How they can climb enormous distances or adapt to various conditions.
I have watched hours and hours of David Attenborough around the world narrating big and small nature events but once you zoom in or out properly all nature events are BIG nature events. You can appreciate an ant’s life (dedicate 2 movies to it for that matter) and you can appreciate a blue whale, largest animal that ever lived. 200 tons.
At some point it hit me. This is so much like what life is for humans.
Let me explain what I mean by that. We live in a wonderful and brutal world. Some of us born to it being tall and beautiful and rich while others are born with missing limbs, in the middle of a war zone with no parents. How can we all be living life? How can we be of equal value? How can it all be fair? I think about these questions a lot like millions of other people. I also believe in an all mighty God like millions of other people. In my case it comes in the form of Islam.
How this all comes together is that watching nature documentaries made me realize that all animals are beautiful and strong in their own ways. Once you spend enough time with them you are able to see that. I think the reason why Sir David has been so succesful in what he does is that he knows this and he internalized it. When I watch him interact with any number of animals and plants I see the same fascination and admiration in his eyes. Which then make me look more closely to what he is talking about.
Take each species as a person.
Some are like lions, powerful and majestic and gorgeous. Others are like frogs with big eyes, always half in water half on land, eating crickets. Not exactly equally impressive at first sight. However all these animals have been given ways to survive. Which is what matters when it comes down to it. And which is why in the balance of nature, predetors and prey are actually equally strong. If and when they are not, one goes extinct. Which sucks for both. To be clear I dont mean every single one. Not every single lion is as strong as any other lion or deer. But there has to be enough deers and lions strong as each other to keep both species going. In the process some lions and some deers will die. (All do but some will die sooner than others)
All animals are equipped with survival mechanisms specific to their challenges and so are we. Some run well, others hide and blend in, some are big and can crush you, others are small and can go places no one else can go. Some have impeccable vision while others are transparent in deep dark waters. It is endlessly amazing and fascinating. The one reoccurring theme for me is that they all have what it takes to live. They all face challenges and they all keep on living until they die. None are faced with challenges they cannot take upon. Does not mean they always succeed but they always can.
So do we all, face challenges that is, and no challenge is too small or too big it is all relative. We are all equipped with some kind of way to fight these off. And we should all keep on living, not giving up until the day we die. We are all strong and beautiful in our own ways.
This is starting to sound too much like a Christina Aguilera song or a Dove commercial. But bare with me
We dont look at an oak and an octopus and think octopus must be a more valuable life form (all discussions of value here on are strictly non-monetary) They are both telling incredible stories. Whether you believe in secularist theories of evolution or creationist anti evolution or more likely a combination of evolution and creation (more likely because statistically you are more likely to be a believer or at least an agnostic and more likely to have had at least mediocre education in biology) if you are honest with yourself and you look carefully enough you can see how they each are so dynamic. What the oak tree does to survive and what the octopus does to survive and why strength comes in all shapes and sizes.
It is shocking to me that we do not think about scales more often. In our thinking I would expect us to zoom in and out a lot more often. A wise man told a gathering a was a part of, humans are like ants on a giant carpet with intricate designs. From where we stand nothing seems to make sense it is all reds and blacks and blues. But from above it is a beautiful design.
Remember beauty is half in the beautiful and half in the beholder (as in someone who beholds not the apparently famous fictional monster) Chose to see the beauty. (They discovered birds can see a whole other wavelength of light so even the birds that look dull to us with their brown feathers look phenomenal to other birds.) so even when you cant see it, does not mean it is not there.
May God allow us to see the beauty that is all around and within us.
