Words and Wordsworth from Shannon Roark

I woke up today with a poem in my head. I wake up quite often with a song, or scripture, or even movie lines, it is rare for a poem to greet me in the morning. It was William Wordsworth's "The world is too much with us". Read it if you can find it. It's interesting that this would come into my head, or push itself to the front of my head. I have been thinking about creation and about how it testifies of God's glory and workmanship. As I think about camp, I am thinking about how I want campers to be out in nature so it can speak of the God who created it. I had been thinking of the scriptures that declare that all of creation testifies, about how the rocks and the trees will cry out with praise if I don't. I say let's allow creation to testify to us of God, not that we would look to nature instead of God. I do not propose nature worship, but rather allow nature to remind us of who it is we worship. Wordsworth is pretty serious about nature. He is right, the world is too much with us. He is right we ought to listen to the movement of the wind and appreciate what is around us. It is painful to him, the thought of ignoring all that is found there. It is painful to me, the thought of ignoring the one who made it.

--Shannon

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

--Wordsworth