Swimming pool: Another week in Creation | Frank pool

Last week I wrote a column about the death of biologist EO Wilson and about a particular article in Scientific American.

I received a very encouraging email from a man who noted that I had called the editorial staff for an editorial when it was an editorial. I thanked him for his comments and the correction.

I noticed that the email came from Hungary. I guess what is said in Gregg County doesn't stay in Gregg County.

Others, true biologists, have pointed out the weakness - or should I say "awakening" - of "stupid successful work". I don't need to go, but I would love to go back to Wilson.

In an interview, Wilson was asked about people who think highly of his biological and scientific views, which can be described as reductive materialism. In other words, he believed that matter and energy were all there was, that there was no supernatural substance or activity, and that we can understand the world by reducing l complex activity at simpler levels of explanation.

It seemed to work quite well with ants and termites. He often said that communism was a great idea - for the ants. He also knew how far we were from understanding human behavior, even though he hoped for an "awareness" of science and the humanities.

He did not believe in God or in a supernatural kingdom, but he was not one of the "new atheists" like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens who despised religion.

In fact, Wilson credited his Baptist upbringing with shaping some important and valuable things about his character - his independence of mind and his passion for learning the truth.

He said that despite their difference, he was happy to work with Christians to preserve the natural world, or "Creation" as he called it.

This formulation struck me. I also call nature "Creation". Religious connotations are intentional. Some of us have lived the experience of life on this planet as a manifestation of something precious and sacred. Wilson wanted to work with anyone, including believers, who shared this reverence.

We can meet nature in both wild and cultivated places - my brother does both. He lives in a rural area near Lufkin and is enthusiastic about his garden and his harvest of fish and game, which he says from God's bounty.

As someone who lives in a city and reads a lot, I need reminders to get out and get around.

I start my days with poetry and read the verses of Wendell Berry. He writes simply, of the joys he derives from walking in his fields and woods, from watching the river flow from the windows of his house, from feeling rooted in his land, in his marriage and in his friendships.

I really should have a garden, but I don't have one. What I have is a green belt in my back yard, with a three and a quarter mile loop that my wife and I walked the entire time of our wedding.

So we went out again on a cool January day, walking on familiar trails and seeing the stream and ponds, living oak and mesquite, greenery shriveled by our first hard frost. We walked over rugged, limestone ground that once stood in caves, and passed a small climb filled with shell fossils from when this area was underwater 70 million years ago.

I always promise to keep my eyes open; I inevitably fall into reverie. I think of time, of change and of Creation. EO Wilson reportedly nodded, looking for ants.