With glorious weather last Saturday morning, we grabbed our morning coffee and went outside to sit together on the swinging bench that hangs from the tall elm in the backyard. To be candid, first we had to clean the dirt off the swing because the pace of the past few dizzying weeks—launching two kids back to college and two to school—left us with seemingly no time to just sit.

Given the pace of life these days, it’s easy to miss nature’s plots, pulse, stories, and rhythms—what the Church Fathers called the “Book of Nature”—God’s handiwork to be “read” and contemplated alongside his revealed Word in the “Book of Scripture.” All that beauty, specially made to nourish, delight, soothe, and uplift us, too often goes unread, gathering dust on a shelf as we live out our busy little lives. But true to form on Saturday, just as we settled in to the swing, nature took center stage and two fascinating plots unfolded before our eyes.

With a loud kuk kuk and its characteristic roller-coaster flight pattern, a Pileated Woodpecker announced its arrival to our corner Tulip Poplar. We hadn’t seen the Pileated—the largest woodpecker in North America—all summer, and we marveled as it worked its way along the trunk, its flaming red crest flashing from behind the leaves. (Later, with a little help from Google, we learned that one pair of Pileated Woodpeckers, who mate for life and live 8-12 years, requires about 150 acres—so we felt graced by this visit.) 
 
Just 100 feet away in a giant sycamore, a crow convention was getting underway. They were flying in from every direction to assemble there. It was 9 am, and yes, they were mobbing a predator—most likely a hawk, eagle, or owl, which we never did see—deep within the branches. Their caws became louder and louder until their sheer numbers dislodged it. Then, all was quiet again, the crows dispersed, and our quiet rocking continued, our tired eyes, ringing ears, and overwrought brains lulled by a simple gaze at rustling leaves.
 
As researcher and psychology professor Marc Berman asserts in his newly-published Nature and the Mind: The Science of How Nature Improves Cognitive, Physical, and Social Well-Being, the positive effects of time in nature are not just spiritual. They’re psychological and deeply aligned to overall human flourishing. Berman points to mounting evidence that even small daily amounts of time in nature lead to what Ever and I tasted anew on our backyard swing:

• Decreased irritability, anxiety, depression, and aggression
• Increased executive functioning and better planning
• Accelerated physical and emotional healing (e.g., following a surgery, sickness, or death of a loved one)
• Increased focus and stronger “directed attention” resources

On this last point regarding attention, Berman explains, “It’s really important that our directed attention bank is full. When it gets depleted, we have to do things to restore it, and a lot of the activities that humans do to restore directed attention aren’t really that restful—watching TV, surfing the web, streaming, texting. We are a little bit worried that, as a species, we’re maybe getting into a directed attention crisis.” He points to studies that prove that a 50-minute walk in nature can “improve a person’s ability to direct attention by 20 percent.”
 
Berman posits that time in nature—even if it’s just 5 or 10 minutes a day—is not a luxury, but a necessity for human flourishing. He continues, “It seems like having more nature nearby improves physical health, it improves mental health, it improves productivity, it reduces aggression—and that might lead to people getting along better with one another at pretty big scales.” 
 
In the coming week, we invite you to test-drive Berman’s findings in your own family life and see what kind of difference it makes: 

• Spend 5 to 10 minutes a day quietly observing nature (no phone, no playlist), and track what kind of results you experience.  
• Take a 10 to 20 minute walk in nature.
• “Naturize” the interior of your home with houseplants, flowers, or even photos of nature.
• Invite your children to play outside.
• Talk with your kids about nature, and plan an upcoming day-trip to enjoy it.
• Pray one of the nature Psalms (e.g., 8, 19, 29, 65, 104, 148) which praises God for his creation.

As we walked back into our home after the Pileated sighting and the crow convention, our gait was slower, less rushed. Our minds seemed more at peace and less teeming with to-do lists. A nearby cardinal’s song and the rustling of the leaves in the breeze seemed more accessible, more personal, more intimate.
 
Beauty can do this to us. God’s beauty in nature has a way of putting our loves in order and our hearts at rest. His intimate love for us awaits us in ever-new ways through our next encounter with him, outside in his grandeur.