“Once, when a visiting philosopher asked how such a learned man got along in the desert without books, Anthony replied, “My book is the nature of created things, and as often as I have a mind to read the words of God, they are at my hand.” Not long after that, St. Augustine (354–430) also identified nature as an alternative scripture: Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that? What, heaven and earth shout to you, “God made me!” 3”