This article is part of an ongoing series of contemplations about God’s creation and man’s role in it by Rev. Lou Veiga, Pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Houston, TX.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”

(Rom 1:18-20 ESV)

The first house that I purchased was in the town of Wilmore, Kentucky. At that time, there were still plenty of empty lots and farmland within half a mile of the house, which gave one the sensation of almost being in the country. In the warm months, I could hear the cows bellowing and the frogs croaking in the nearby marshy pond from an open second-story bedroom window.  

The house was a two-and-a-half-story Sears and Roebuck catalog product that featured cedar planks and stucco walls. It had been built in the ‘20s. The previous owners were science types, chemistry, and biology professors at the nearby Ashbury College. The campus was situated three doors from us at the head of our street. The two professors shared much gardening knowledge and had planted and maintained a beautiful landscape. The front yard planting had long been established, so my task as the new owner was simple: learn what trees, shrubs, and plants were in the landscape and how to care for them.

The backyard was a different matter. Over the years, the birds and squirrels had sabotaged the mock orange hedge to the south by dropping several wild cherry seeds, now grown to a height of 15 feet, and a 25-foot wild mulberry tree threatened to dye my new house purple with its berries. There was plenty of room in the northwest corner for a garden, so that was where I began my backyard improvements.

I built a dozen raised beds and filled them with the best soil I could scrape. I placed flat stones between the raised beds, making the yard look domesticated. Dwarf cherry, apple, and pear trees flanked the garden’s borders, and the rest was allotted to vegetables and herbs. One square bed near the front was to be planted with annual flowers. Soon, this small bed in my garden would surprise me.

While looking through a seed catalog, I noticed a cultivar of the tobacco plant that was right for growing in small garden spaces. The picture of the flowers of this particular Nicotiana species was large and trumpet-shaped. Its flowers bloomed in red, pink, and white. A bonus was that they were fragrant. Since I lived in the middle of Burley tobacco country, I reckoned this plant would enjoy a homecoming. I purchased a packet of the white variety – for I knew by experience that white flowers could be extremely fragrant. I was not disappointed; the seeds germinated, sprouted, grew, and bloomed beautifully in the Kentucky soil.

One sunny morning, as I was in my backyard still bemoaning the wild cherry and mulberry trees and admiring the blooms on my tobacco plant, I spotted a tiny bird hovering about the flower bed and stopping to sip the large tobacco flower’s nectar. It was a female Ruby-throated hummingbird. The bird would enjoy a long draught, climb suddenly and almost vertically to the top of a nearby pine tree, wait a minute or two, then return for more nectar. This activity persisted for about 10 minutes. I thought I would test the bird’s interest in Nicotiana. I sat very still on the edge of the raised bed, with one of the blooms no more than a foot away from my shoulder. Undaunted, the female returned to that very flower, hovered in mid-air for a second, looked me in the eye with defiance, and took a long sip. The buzzing of her wings was louder than that of several bumblebees, and the rotation of her lightning-fast wings drafted a slight breeze my way. “What a brassy bird!” I thought. But the little creature couldn’t help itself. I later learned that the nectar of the tobacco plant is virtually intoxicating to hummingbirds; the nectar had suppressed any fear of man in that two-inch long, one-eighth-ounce bird.

My wife Suzi and I visited the Daniel Boone National Forest in eastern Kentucky on a summer day.  Its most scenic section, the Red River Gorge, was only a few hours’ drive from Wilmore. This forested land is admired for hiking trails through the famed Land of the Arches. Over the years, wind and rain had chiseled away much of the limestone in this country area, leaving behind impressive arching sandstone bridges, flying buttresses, and narrow ridges that reached up to 400 feet above the creeks that lined the forest.

We were hiking to a remote site in the park called the Indian Staircase and came to a small stream. I forded the shallow creek first. While waiting for Suzi to cross, I sensed a familiar bumblebee buzz and a slight breeze on my face. A blurred image appeared just before my face. It took me a moment to focus my eyes that close to my nose, but suddenly, I recognized that brazen little bird again! Bewildered, I opened my mouth and exclaimed, “Su—!” But the minute the hummingbird saw my gaping mouth, it startled, jetted downstream, and disappeared. Suzi had seen it, too. She guessed that the hummingbird had confused me for a giant flower. She was right. I had put on my favorite men’s cologne that morning before leaving Wilmore — Guerlain Dry – a classic French favorite since the 1920s featuring staying power and a clean, flowery, and slightly citric aroma. That bold bird thought that my grande nez was a flower and would venture a sip!

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Then, I went fishing at Rollover Pass on the Bolivar Peninsula, which is a barrier island across the bay and due east of Galveston, Texas. This 100-foot-wide channel is world-renowned for its red drum fishery – I learned of one man who traveled from Australia every year to fish there. (Incidentally, the place got its name during Prohibition, when bootleggers would ditch their whiskey barrels full of liquor off of their ships by rolling them over into the gulf on an incoming tide at the mouth of the channel to float their wares into Galveston Bay, and not unload the ship in Galveston. Thereby, they wouldn’t have to explain their profitable business model to the harbormaster).

Fishing that day was impossible. The offshore wind blew at a steady 20 mph straight into the channel. This caused the scheduled outflow of water from the bay into the gulf to halt and actually reverse itself – an outrageous situation for a fisherman who relies on forecasted tide charts for optimal fishing conditions. Besides the tide being crazed, it seemed all the floating sargassum weed in the Gulf of Mexico wanted to roll over into the bay through my channel. Every cast would get a bite from a fish, but in retrieving the line, my rig would collect about 5 pounds of nuisance seaweed. I gave up fishing, frustrated. And just in time.

In addition to sargassum weed, the day’s heavy winds were rolling over hummingbirds into the channel! Dozens of Ruby-throated hummingbirds, both males and females, were jetting unto the Bolivar Peninsula shore at twice the wind speed! And behind them, in furious pursuit, were dozens of opportunistic Laughing Gulls, hoping for a 2-gram protein picnic snack from a hummingbird!

The sight was something to ponder. Active hummingbirds require a continual source of nectar to maintain their high metabolisms. This is why they would repeatedly visit my tobacco flowers and try to sneak a kiss of my French cologne in the gorge – hummingbirds must sip, and sip, and sip again to stay alive during the day. How could these tiny birds survive the flight from Yucatan, flying day and night, without a single nip of nutrition across the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico for the duration of their migration? Amazingly, these immigrant hummingbirds did not seem tired at all; they skillfully outmaneuvered the larger predator gulls in flight.

I’ve since learned that hummingbirds will also eat small insects on the wing. Could it be that the Rollover Pass hummingbirds joined migrating moths, flies, and other small insects high up in the earth’s Jetstream, and thereby saved fuel and even refueled in-midflight to arrive with enough pep to evade their hungry captors on the beach?

Man has been given stewardship over all of God’s creation. This trust involves a moral duty to understand our world and to care for it as those who bear the divine image. Our love for creation indeed affirms our love for its Creator, for in it his being, wisdom, and power are clearly displayed. In the case of these hummingbirds, I merely availed myself of the opportunity to be outdoors: in my backyard, on the hiking trail, and on the beach – and these wonderful creatures came (or better were brought) to me.

This is how I usually enjoy reading God’s book of natural revelation. I leave my high-pixel panels and displays and step outside for a spell. You need to believe that since God delights to reveal something of his majesty and glory to you, he will bring something bearing his signature your way. So go outdoors. Have faith. Wait. Observe. Then learn. There’s much theology and science to be gleaned first-hand as a reader of God’s book of natural revelation, and a great deal of joy, too!

Featured humming bird photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash.