What is good about creation? (Part 1)

In 'The Weight of Glory' CS Lewis states that:

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things - the beauty, the memory of our own past - are good images of what we really desire ... they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune wee have not heard.(italics original)

I have two concerns about this.

1. It seems to give creation a position of mediating God.
2. It downplays the goodness of creation.

Maybe I'm being too harsh on Lewis with my first point. I want to be able to say with the bible that the heavens declare the glory of God, but I don't want to use the word 'through' like Lewis does. How can you do this?

Bizarrely, after criticising him for having too 'high' a understanding of creation in one breadth, my second concern comes from him having too low a understanding of creation's goodness.

By making creation a mediator of God's beauty he actually turns it into an obstruction. It becomes instrumental and so disposable. He looks forward to a day when creation passes away and there is just us and God:

When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol...We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects.

In contrast I would like to say:

1. Christ is the only mediator between God and man.
   Because Christ is not an imperfect image, but God himself, he is not a mediator who serves his purpose until we pass beyond him to a more intimate relationship.
2. Creation is good in itself.
   But this is not because of any worthiness inherent in Creation as a rival to God's worthiness. Instead it is a gift that Creation receives because of the declaration of God (see previous post).