“Nature,” in Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC’S of Faith

p. 276

“Unfortunately, Adam and Eve took nature with them [including human nature] when they fell.  You’ve only got to look at the sea in a November gale.  You’ve only to consider the staggering indifference of disease, or the field at Antietam, or a cook boiling a lobster, or the statistics on child abuse.  You’ve only to remember your own darkest dreams.  But the dream of Eden is planted deep in all of us too.  A parade of goldenrod by the road’s edge.  The arc of a baseball through summer sky.  The way a potter’s hand cradles the clay.  They all cry aloud of the might-have-been of things, and the may-be-still.”