Leaf Peeping

That is what they call going out to enjoy the changing leaves here in the Western North Carolina mountain country. And that is what we are going to do today. Our first few days here it was rainy. My father and step-mother apologized a couple of times (meteorologists seem to think they control the weather!), but Cheri and I told them that, like most Californians, we enjoy visiting rain. But now it is sunny, and it has been below freezing the last couple of nights, so the leaves should be beautiful along the Blue Ridge Parkway. And it has me thinking about something. I know that evolutionary biologists say that our appreciation of the beauty of nature is an evolutionary response to the fact that we are the product of nature. But I can't help but wonder - do other animals even have the concept of beauty? And even if ours is a purely natural response to nature, does that mean that God had no hand in making it possible for us to enjoy beauty? Several years ago I read a work by Mortimer Adler on beauty which argued that beauty is a moral category - he made a powerful argument. And then, after awhile, I realize that maybe the best thing I can do is stop asking all these philosophical questions and just enjoy the beauty. So, I think I will go leaf peeping!

Pastor Ken