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| God is... |
I attended a Schlitz Audubon Nature Center, Spiritual World
of Nature program this past week where we were invited to briefly share what
nature means to us. I said,
“Nature is where God talks and I listen.”
After speaking those words I began to appreciate again the gifts
accompanying the suffering that led me into the natural world where I found a
unique solace and answers to many of life’s toughest questions. I am grateful
for having recorded the comfort and insights I experienced in my memoir “God
Never Hurries.” Now I can remember
and relive them, and share with others.
Nature is—where the morning sun beamed through the trees and
whispered, “Be not afraid;” where I came to know a caring Presence to whom I
belong; it is celebrating freedom at dusk that was like a trip to the moon on
gossamer wings; it is a magnificent, warm, soul soaking rain; it is a huge oak
tree where I sometimes took my troubles and always parted with a sense of
communion and strength; it is a blue moonlit snow drift where I played with my
late son Joe and dog Lydia; it is a bright, fall, moonlit night that called me
outside to write one night; it is the smell of wood smoke in my sweatshirt and the
rustle of dry leaves in dark trees above that gave me respite from my troubles;
it is a curious deer that encouraged my curiosity and later another deer that
showed me all is Eucharist; it is tall gray herons wading in a thick gray
blanket of fog that let me sense the seamlessness of the world’s soul; it is a
sunlit fog that showed the church of my birth in a rusting old car buried
upside down on the beach; it is water running under a milky cascade of ice on
the bluff that sounded like a happy, vibrant church where everyone has a voice;
and peddling my bike past a swamp, where I heard frogs talking, I was reminded
to talk more and share myself with others. I could go on and on but I think you can understand why I
listen when God talks.
A common theme from others who shared what nature meant for
them at last week’s program was a sense of balance and centering. And then our competent instructor led
us to see how the interdependency of diverse natural communities is the source
of their strength and order.
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