They found caterpillars, monarch butterfly eggs, and more. It brought him joy to witness his grandkids move from disinterest to excitement. He recalls, “Within moments, the kids’ attitudes were transformed…they were running from plant to plant…and they were so excited. We collected a dozen [caterpillars]…brought them home, reared them up, and then released the adult butterflies. It was a formational experience in nature connection that started when they learned to engage their senses.” 

As a scientist and person of faith, Rick wants to help people of all ages, especially Christians, develop…meaningful connection with nature.

As a scientist and person of faith, Rick wants to help people of all ages, especially Christians, develop this type of meaningful connection with nature. For him, connecting with nature isn’t just for scientists or nature enthusiasts, it’s for everyone. And connection with nature isn’t just for our physical, emotional, and social well-being, although those are very important. Nature connection is fundamentally important for our spiritual health. Rick writes, “what the Christian community has largely failed to realize is that in distancing ourselves from nature, we are distancing ourselves from God.”

But how exactly have we gotten ourselves here in the first place? And where do we go from here? Can we regain our connection with nature and repair the chasm we’ve wedged between ourselves and God? Rick believes so. In his talk at the recent BioLogos 2024 Faith and Science Conference, he answered these questions and challenged us to respond.

How We Got Here

While training to become an ecologist, Rick says that he was optimistic and hopeful, “working under the assumption that if we learned about the damage that humans were causing to ecosystems, we’d actually want to do something about it.” Sadly, he confessed that in retrospect he was “profoundly naive. Despite all of that effort, despite all of the efforts of tens of thousands of scientists around the world, we’ve hardly moved the needle on creation care. Our understanding of human impacts on earth has far exceeded our interest in actually doing anything…Earth is worse now than when I started my career 35 years ago.”

For Rick, dualism, bad theology, and technology are some of the main reasons we’ve gotten ourselves into this terrible predicament. Dualism is “the philosophical separation of the mental or the sacred from the physical or the secular. That philosophy has fully integrated into our western worldviews, beginning with Greek Platonism, accelerating with the Enlightenment disenchantment, and especially with the rise of secularism.”

As for bad theology, Rick believes that “we’ve incorporated dualism, the division of the sacred and the secular, into our religious beliefs, leading to the desacralization of the world and escapist eschatology. We’ve reduced the gospel to simply the salvation of individual human souls, and we’ve emphasized dominion in relation to the natural world. Dominion is actually a posture of colonialism. It emphasizes possession, control, extraction and enrichment for the privileged few.”

When it comes to technology, it has wedged a divide making us “physically and functionally separate from the natural world.” According to Rick, “for over 99% of human history we’ve lived closely connected to the natural world. That connection shaped us physically, emotionally, spiritually, and socially. But over the last 100 years, that connection has largely been lost. Today, the average American spends 93% of their life indoors. Kids, on average, spend less than 10 minutes per day in unstructured outdoor play, but seven hours per day in front of screens.”

Even the simple act of recycling is something that Rick believes is a good act, but is, sadly, often used as an easy way out of committing to do more. “We’ve reduced our perception of creation care to a short list of duties and prohibitions—what I call environmental legalism. To be honest, this is why I wish recycling didn’t exist. It gives people an easy way out. It happens to me all the time:  the topic of creation care comes up, and people are quick to tell me, “we recycle!” I hate to break it to you, but we’re not going to recycle our way out of the climate crisis or the biodiversity crisis. It’s not going to happen.”

“We’ve reduced our perception of creation care to a short list of duties and prohibitions what I call environmental legalism…I hate to break it to you, but we’re not going to recycle our way out of the climate crisis or the biodiversity crisis.”

So then what does work? Rick said, “Immersive experience: thoughtful, intentional, mindful, and especially emotional connection to the created world around us now.”

As for what these look like in practice, Rick shared a few suggestions. “Start simple and develop over time. Ask yourself, what’s my next step? Find activities that you enjoy:  wonder-walks, gardening, birding, cooking, art. A lot of what we already do has a connection to the natural world. We just need to find it and think about it.”

He also finds it helpful to find ways to “practice daily liturgies of beholding creation. These actually will rewire our minds. So step outside. Look at the sunshine, look at an eclipse, look at leaves—mindfully, intentionally, thoughtfully, emotionally. Hold that for 30 seconds a day, and it will rewire your brain paths to better connect with the natural world around us. Keep a nature journal. I started an awe diary. Learn the names and habits of your wild neighbors, engage with a like-minded community, model your creation care commitments, and work towards local, institutional and societal changes that promote creation care and creation connection.”