Highlights of Life

The heavens declare the glory of God… and certainly this song captures this thought. The bible talks of how if want to know there is a God.. all we have to do is look at heaven and earth, and all the wonders contained therein. For each and everything we find, is incredibly and fearfully made.

It’s funny… but throughout history, mankind has intuitively known how majestic this world is. From the ancient of civilizations they have feared nature, and sometimes even worshipped nature. Ironic really, cause mankind can see the beauty and the awesome force behind nature and worship it (be it sun, stars, wind, earth, water)… but sometimes they are unable to see the maker that made it.

Even today, scientists study nature, and molecules and wonder and scratch their heads, and marvel at it, but fail to see there is a maker/creater behind it all. In my undergrad years, I had a virology prof who was doing a lecture on the HIV virus… and how cleverly made it was. Viruses being not exactly a parasite, nor a completely whole and independant living organism, it straddles that odd limbo place in life. As she got more and more down to the molecular level, and how it replicated itself, she made the statement, “this virus is beautiful… ” in this rather awestruck voice. And at that moment I thought, “wow… even this prof can acknowledge the beauty in the structure and replication process of a virus”… but strangely enough I think she was an athiest.

However, there are many men in history, who being hard core scientists (studying physics or mathematics), who studied the forces of nature … and in the end became Christian as they noted that the more they studied the laws of nature, the more it became evident that there indeed was and is a living God who created it.

To me, I think that scientists today are very much people who are trying to understand and decipher God’s handiwork. In many ways we have begun to translate it…. but it doesn’t mean we understand it. For instance, we have sequenced the entire human genome… but do we understand it? Not really. We can corrolate various bits and pieces of the gene sequence to various human traits and defects… but that is about it.

We can do a CT scan of the human brain, but very much to this day, with all our wonderful technology, it is very much a black box. Ah… yes we strive to create… be it life through cloning, or artificial intelligence …. or even trying to create human tissue and organs… but we cannot speak life into existance.

Anyways, this is a very old hymn that has been rearranged by John Rutter and initially sung by a boy’s choir. This version is sung by a Methodist girls choir. Either way, the lyrics are still very much the same (other then a few changed lines) and the new melody is beautiful.

There are hymns that have such incredible beauty in both lyrics and melody… and express so much more than some current songs. I guess this song is a combination of both wonderful attributes.

For the beauty of the earth; For the beauty of the skies, For the love which from our birth over and around us lies: Lord of all, to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.

For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night, Hill and vale and tree and flower, Sun and moon and stars of light: Lord of all, to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.

For the joy of human love, Brother, sister, parent, child, friends of earth, and friends above, For all gentle thoughts and mild: Lord of all to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.

For each perfect gift of thine to our race so freely given, Graces human and divine, Flow’rs of earth and buds of heav’n: Lord of all to thee we raise this our joyful hymn of praise.