I sat out on my deck reading one quiet summer morning. From the corner of my eye, I caught a Blue Jay flitting between the houses. He had just landed on the gutter of the house behind ours. He stood there for a few moments and then spread his wings and leaped off again. He fell a few feet before the physics of wind and wing defied the gravity pulling him down. He made a bee-line for the next house and landed with pinpoint accuracy. For some reason I found his activity mesmerizing this morning. He seemed to have an agenda, he was doing something.
On the ground between the houses, a Robin hopped along, pausing every few bounces, cocking his head, listening or staring at some spot on the ground. Then suddenly he thrust his beak between the blades and lifted a squirming worm from the dirt. “Are there really that many worms in our yard?!”, I thought. I must confess, I have tried to find worms slinking along among the tufts of grass, and never seen a single one. How does he find so many?
It dawned on me that there was a myriad of activities going on around me. Birds singing, ants marching in single file, off on some mission. A cicada rattling out its bizarre buzz in another tree nearby. A butterfly in search of nectar. They all seemed to be thoroughly employed. There seemed to be an orderly purpose in it all. A consciousness was clearly on display.
Anthropomorphism is a concept we all learn early in life. That’s when we attribute human-like characteristics or behavior to non-human things. It’s a tendency deeply ingrained in humanity. Hardly a children’s book has been written that didn’t include at least some hint of this. Of course, we’ve also been aided in this inclination by heavy hitters such as Disney. For decades, we’ve been fed a steady stream of animated stories, with animals dressed up as humans, in blazers, pants, and scarfs, doing all the patently human activities we know so well. They have families and jobs, houses and cars, and all the recognizable headaches of modern, western life. Why do we do this? Why do we like to humanize what is clearly not human?
We are taught that this is a human overlay on the world around us, something we imagine and impute to those inanimate objects. We’re told that as the only sentient beings we know of, we want to surround ourselves with others like us. But I think we do it because we’re made in the image of God. And being created by a personal Being, we find personality in the things around us. The consciousness we recognize is not human, and also not our own, but God’s. We are watching the mind of God.
In this consciousness, we find purpose, and purpose is the very heart of goodness The distinctive quality of goodness is that it fulfills some beneficial purpose. But purpose declares personality, intention, and design. We sense the goodness in the world around us, and so want to attribute personality to it. But what we’re recognizing is the personality of God.
Even in this broken world, so marred by mankind’s sin and the curse that lays upon it, we sense a goodness lingering all about us, like perfume in the air. The Apostle Paul told the people of Lystra that God “did not leave Himself without witness, in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” (Acts 14:17) Rather than attributing human characteristics to those things around us, we’re to see the goodness and nearness of God in them.
Who has not known the loveliness of a cool breeze or a shading cloud on a sweltering day? This teaches us that our God is merciful. He gives comfort to the weary. Why are there so many wonderful flavors in food? Surely our sustenance could be derived from tasteless pods of nutrition. But instead, we find an extravagant array of flavorful delights. Do we not learn from this that our God doesn’t merely sustain us, but satisfies our deepest longings? Or who has not been almost brought to tears at the fiery beauty of the setting sun? Does this not remind us there is glory coming in the end?
As I pondered these things this morning, I looked at an area on the floor where our dog Digory used to lay. At moments like this, he would feel my gaze upon him and look up at me, as if to say, “Yes? Did you want to do something?” Oh, who does not know the personality of a good dog? We had to put him down this past Spring, and I miss him terribly. But looking back now at the 15 years we had with him, I think I’m meant to recognize the personality of God in our dog’s faithful presence. We feel comfort and companionship in a good dog. It’s meant to be a shadow of the real thing. We’re to see the shadow and look up to what is casting it, a God who never leaves us or forsakes us. And looking up, we’re to draw near in faith.
