"When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees…"
I've always thought that word "sweetly" tastes like saccharine! In any case, it shows little understanding of why birds sing, call, chirp, warble, and tweet.
But I guess it doesn't work so well if the line is, "And hear the birds complaining in the trees."
Going back to that hymn, "How Great Thou Art", the verse in question plays an important part by including in Christian experience the enjoyment of the creation. At a time when our planet, the natural world around us, is being devastated and ruined by human economic activity, a theological understanding of what is going on is part of the Church's call to be faithful to God in this, our time.
Forests with birds, mountains with fauna and flora, seas capable of sustaining life, land and soil being preserved fertile without exhaustion – these too are part of the Christian liturgy, either as cause for thanksgiving, or as cause for repe tance for the waste and destruction of an irreplaceable treasure, our home.
The verse about wandering in forest glades and lofty mountain grandeur is natural theology as doxology:
"Then sings my soul, my Saviour God to Thee,
How great Thou Art…"
Even more interesting, the hymn has become one of the two or three most popular hymns at Christian funerals. In the face of death, amongst the comforting words that matter, so many of us choose to sing these that celebrate forest birds singing and mountains soaring. Sometimes natural theology, a theology of nature, provides the life-saving sense that life is gift and always precious.
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