I have a strong emotional reaction while watching the wonderful show Planet Earth that is intimately tied in with my struggle with my faith and spirituality.

On the one hand, watching the show fills me with awe at the beauty of creation. I get filled with an appreciation of the natural world and its inhabitants. This has long been a grounding of my Christianity, something I recognized intimately during my six weeks at sea during college. Sailing on a small ship and surrounded by the power of the ocean, I felt more sure of my faith than at any other point.

But then there's the other hand. And that's when I see how foreign and inhospitable some of the world's ecosystems are to me, and how so much of it goes on with little regard to me personally or humanity in general. I see how strongly life desires to find a way–bacteria in sunless caves that feed on the limestone itself, for example–and then I start to question and doubt that awe I felt, and reflect instead on "my place" here, which suddenly feels very small and fragile.

All this from a TV show!

Well worth watching if you ever are inclined. There's got to be something really great there if it starts making me get all theological.