SUNDAY MUSINGS

"Every motion of the constantly shifting bodies on the world, is timed to the occasion for some definite, foreordered end. The flowers blossom in obedience to the same law that marks the course of constellations...Nature is one, and to me the greatest delight of observation and study is to discover new unities in this all-embracing and eternal harmony...Men, with only a book of knowledge...have seized upon evolution as an escape from the idea of a GOD. "Evolution!"- a wonderful, mouth-filling word...Just say 'evolution' and you have explained every phenomenon of Nature, and explained away GOD. It sounds big and wise. Evolution, they say, brought the earth through its glacial periods, caused the snow blanket to recede, and the flower carpet to follow it, raised the forests of the world, developed animal life from the jelly-fish to the thinking man. But what caused evolution? There they stick. To my mind, it is inconceivable that a plan that has worked out...the development of beauty,that has made every microscopic particle of matter perform its function in harmony with every other in the universe- that such a plan is the blind product of an unthinking abstraction. No; somewhere, before evolution was, was an Intelligence...You may call that Intelligence what you please; I cannot see why so many people object to call it God." -John Muir
(John Muir (1838-1914) was America's most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist. He is one of California's most important historical personalities. He has been called "The Father of our National Parks," "Wilderness Prophet," and "Citizen of the Universe." He once described himself more humorously, and perhaps most accurately, as, a "poetico-trampo-geologist-botanist and ornithologist-naturalist etc. etc. !!!!" Legendary librarian and author Lawrence Clark Powell, said of him: "If I were to choose a single Californian to occupy the Hall of Fame, it would be this tenacious Scot who became a Californian during the final forty-six years of his life."
As a wilderness explorer, he is renowned for his exciting adventures in California's Sierra Nevada, among Alaska's glaciers, and world wide travels in search of nature's beauty. As a writer, he taught the people of his time and ours the importance of experiencing and protecting our natural heritage. His writings contributed greatly to the creation of Yosemite, Sequoia, Mount Rainier, Petrified Forest, and Grand Canyon National Parks. Dozens of places are named after John Muir, including the Muir Woods National Monument, the John Muir Trail.)