“insight,” a word that is often found parallel with hokhmah, “wisdom.” A careful regard of the world reveals the wisdom, the understanding and insight that created it. Through wise seeing, creation can become an icon that leads us to the knowledge of God. “Does not wisdom call, and insight give forth her voice?” (Prov. 8:1) A quick look, a careless regard, a desire for quick profit or utility, or a heedless use of natural resources can be healed by the saving wisdom found in the contemplation of what God has made. But contemplation of icons demands time and attention, it comes about through a sabbath, a resting in that which is contemplated, and through that rest that lets go of preconceptions and obligations and replaces the seeing that looks for profit with the insight of a divinely instituted sabbath that becomes an opening to God through His creation. So nature as an icon brings us back to the sabbatical rest, back to leaving the fields with unharvested grain and the trees with unpicked fruit left for the poor to glean, brings us back to the remission of debts and to the right relationship expressed in a kenotic rest that lets all find sustenance for life, the landowner and the migrant, the fruit farmer and the poor, the cattle, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, all of them figures in an icon of creation.
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