Sunset in Wisconsin 080208

Shimmering Beauty

You have to stand behind tree trunks, your lens protected from the incoming sun, to see it--the shimmering beauty of created things in motion, swept by the wind, reflecting God's light. It is an awesome sight, breath-taking really, and soul warming. Flowers, little leaves of all kinds and colors, plus pine and evergreen needles, all shimmering with life, even if different in kind and character.

Thanks be to God for [such] bounty and beauty, life that sustains us in body and mind:/plenty for all, if we learn how to share it, riches undreamed of to fathom and find.

(The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshipbook, No 712, verse 2)

A week now into Time Away, rest provides such windows constantly, whenever the chronos sweep of minutes and hours fades into kairos moments that never fail to trip one's gratitude and feed one's faith. All I did was to go out on the deck after supper to be quiet and alone. God and his creation did the rest, as the sound of the wind and the glorious movement of shimmering leaves and green needles caught hold of my soul.

Thus am I drawn to believe and trust this night, not out of duty but out of necessity.

This is my Father's world; God shines in all that's fair;

in rustling grass I hear him pass--he speak to me ev'rywhere.

This is my Father's world: why should my heart be sad?

The Lord is King, let heaven ring! God reigns; let earth be glad!

(The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshipbook, No 57, verse 3)