It’s always good to consider the the things we take for granted.  The idea that naturescapes are something to be fawned over is relatively new.  I think we owe many of our sentiments about nature to the Romantics.  I used to wonder why pre moderns pained still lives so often.  Who cares about bowls of fruit? But that is because we take our fruit for granted.  For most of human history nature was not some romantic setting for teenagers making out under a giant elm tree, it was the enemy.  Nature was out to kill you.  Insects could wipe out your crops in a single swarm, leaving you without food for the year.  Weather could destroy your shelter, leaving you out in the cold for winter.  Animals could kill your husband as he went to market.  And don’t even get started on the forest.  Any number of evils await there, as you can see from Shakespeare’s writing.  The forest is always bad, entering in, probably means never being heard from again. And this was the ChristianEurope view.  To the pagans, ruled by demons, nature was as capricious as a farie, you never knew what was going on but at the root was a totale fear.

But then as the industrial revolution began to ramp up, the forests were cut down.  And poets and painters began to mourn the loss of the good old days and they created a romantic affinity for this nature in their works.  They pined for a day, which never existed when man and nature existed in perfect harmony and where the noble savage danced around in the forest like a disney musical number.  Unfortunately this never happened.  And the savages, were savage.

In stark contrast you have the painting of a bowl of fruit.  Men used to love, honor and cherish fruit.  Fruit was life.  A good harvest meant comfort for you and your family.  It represented the reward of hard work,  well done good and faithful servant.  It was not only the culmination of your year, but the culmination of human endeavor as each generation improved farming techniques.  And the same went for children.  Step one of the great commission was having lots of children and training them up in the nurture an admonition of the Lord.  And so paintings of fruit also included scenes of family and home.  Our ideal is impotent singles hiking from their rentals to federal property with their dogs, in between shifts as cogs in the big tech oligarchy .  Theirs was a complete world, where a man was king of his property, however small, and his wife a queen giving birth to future generations who could accomplish more than he ever dreamed.  They pushed back the curse as far as it was found.  We worship ourselves and our comfort and don’t even know where we came from.

So yes appreciate the sunrise, but really appreciate the sunrise of humanity under Jesus the Christ who turned nature from foe to friend.  If we don’t we are likely to return.

 

Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. -Isaiah 62:4