She didn't know it but she was echoing Rizal. My husband Howie, who is a history major and has an environmental policy masters degree,  tells me it was during Rizal's  exile in Dapitan that Rizal had written exchanges on the subject of faith with the Father Superior of Jesuit Mission, Fr. Pablo Pastells, his former spiritual director at the Ateneo de Manila when Rizal was still a young student. In one letter he wrote:

"I believe in revelation, but in the living revelation of nature which surrounds us everywhere, in the voice speaking out through nature – powerful, eternal, incorruptible, clear, distinct, and universal as the Being from which it comes. It is this revelation that I believe in, which speaks to us and penetrates our being from the day we are born to the day we die.

"Can any other books reveal to us more faithfully God's work, his goodness, his love, his providence, his eternity, his glory, his wisdom? 'The heavens tell the glory of the Lord, and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Ps 19:1' Must humanity look for other gospels in order to love God? Do you not believe that men did wrong when they looked for God'd will in scrolls and temples instead of the wonders of

nature under the majestic canopy of the skies?

"Instead of interpreting obscure passages or phrases which provoked hatreds, wars, and dissensions, would it not have been preferable to interpret the facts of nature the better to shape our lives according to its inviolable laws and utilize its resources for our perfection?"

And this was no idle talk for him.  During his four-year exile in Dapitan, his curiosity about nature prompted him to collect species with the help of his students and send some specimens to the Antrhopological and Ethnographical Museum of Dresdan.  He discovered three species not previously known to science - a reptile Draco rizali, an amphibian Rhacophorus rizali and a beetle Apogania rizali.  In return, the museum sent him surgical instruments, microscopes, books and journals.  I

tried to get photos of these on the web but no luck so far.

One might think it was easy then as not many animals had yet been named. But today, new species are still discovered in the Philippines.  Just this year, 50 new nudibranchs were brought to California for naming.  Every year for the past ten years, a new mammal is discovered in our dwindling forests.

It is all there and if we only get outside, God will show us the way to him.