We interrupt our regular programming...

Oh boy...

This week, I want to try something a bit different.

This post will be a bit...different. This change in content doesn't reflect the direction the blog is taking: I have many more adventures to discuss. Just yesterday I spent all day at Washington Park researching for at least two stories, and then experienced the peculiar insanity that is Salt and Straw. Believe me, I have far more traditional content coming down the pipeline in June. 

However, for many months now, I have felt a need to discuss matters more personal and serious to me. Allow me to step away, just for a moment, and discuss something that I am often hesitant to discuss. This one may not be your cup of tea. That's fine: if you chose not to read it, I will not be hurt. Next week, I will resume my normal subject matter and, God willing, a regular schedule. But I can't refrain from discussing this any longer.

So I decided to do something a bit different this week. I have done a number of editorials before, whether blatantly or otherwise, from a Christian perspective. I am a Christian myself, I profess to be one anyway, only God knows how successful I am at it. However I believe that is what draws me to Nature, and why most of the Kramer Paper's articles focus on the natural world: we can influence it, but it isn't our creation. It's God's. 

Still with me? Ok...

I guess in a way, I hope to bring glory to God, through discussing and sharing his creation, like its sheer existence does by itself. If I am called to glorify God in everything I do, then this blog should be no exception. It's clear that it doesn't have to involve blatant evangelism (which isn't the usual content of the Kramer Paper) but to things as mundane as eating and drinking. If eating a salad can glorify God, then surely writing about His creation can too. However, recently I have felt convicted: all this is good and fine, but not quite enough.

As I mentioned in the Tale of a Plum Tree, everything is temporary: everything. Our lives are short, and the life of the planet is limited as well. Perhaps it will all be here for another million years, perhaps not. But in a moment, it could all be destroyed. That plum tree, to me, was a symbol of this. It is a small example of something ending. God is mightier than the Colorado, and the Grand Canyon could crumble to sand at a moments notice with less effort than us chopping down a plum tree in full blossom. This whole planet, that we know and love, this whole universe, is finite and fragile from God's perspective. (There I go about scale again)

So what is my point?

We have a tendency, in this day and age, to worry about only what we can see, and we grow attached to it. We see the world around us, and we appreciate it, as we should. Or perhaps, we don't explore our surroundings. My passion for writing and sharing the world around me as I see it is one of the reason that I have continued the Kramer Paper far beyond the average lifespan of a normal childhood writing project. However, everything outside: the stars, the trees, the Grand Canyon, all of this is temporary.

Do we appreciate the creation, and neglect the creator? I feel that in a way, prior to writing this editorial, that is what the blog was doing. We are all guilty of this. Creation is beautiful, but it serves a finite purpose: to point to the creator. To help us appreciate God, and build and polish a relationship with him. In the end, that is what matters. I am normally very private about my faith, and struggle with it at times: we all do. However, I have to keep everything: even creation itself in perspective. And I would feel like I was letting Him down if I didn't say this at least once. -KP