By Peter Mommsen revisits Monty Python, Charles Darwin, and Maximus the Confessor in his article, "The Book of the Creatures" in Plough Quarterly, 28: Creatures, Summer Issue. He proposes that "when we forget how to read nature, we forget how to read ourselves." He is convinced that "the natural world is a book that reveals the divine, just as the book of scripture does." He revels in the beauty of nature but also grapples with the evidence of sin in creation that needs the redemption of Christ that Paul discusses in Romans 8. God's world does indeed reveal the God who created, redeemed, and sustains it.
I have less confidence that the ecological movement "can perhaps ride to the rescue" but he points to a reason that Christians should be committed to caring for God's world as His stewards:
"…millions of people worldwide re-learning to read the book of nature, even if only partially and imperfectly. Perhaps…we’ll again learn to decipher the signs of the Goodness behind nature – the one who is both author and subject of the book of the creatures, and who, in Alexander’s words, “gave us eyes to see them, and lips that we might tell how great is God Almighty who hath made all things well.”