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| God is... |
I recently read Gavin De Becker’s book The Gift of Fear and was struck by his brilliant descriptions of
intuition. He wrote: Intuition
connects us to the natural world and to our nature. And. Nature’s greatest accomplishment, the
human brain, is never more efficient or invested than when its host is at
risk. Then intuition is catapulted
to another level entirely, a height at which it can accurately be called graceful,
even miraculous. Intuition is the
journey from A to Z without stopping at any other letter along the way… And …Curiosity
is, after all, the way we answer when intuition whispers, ‘There’s something
there.’ De Becker also states
real fear is not paralyzing but rather energizing and refers to it as coiled up
energy. Perhaps courage is another
word for that energy.
I know it all because it is what I lived to tell the tale
about in my memoir, God Never Hurries. It was as if the voice of God was
speaking to me through the natural world.
The sun’s message to “Be not afraid”; a glimpse of heaven through
grandmother moon; the bright blue sky and the clarity it brought; the deer that
sparked my curiosity and later enlightened me; the fox that signaled caution;
the raccoon that showed me evil often masquerades as good; and wilderness
waters that relieved me of imposed guilt, were just some of the ways nature
informed, comforted and emboldened me.
Periodically I still marvel at how I managed to hold my ground and not
give into my father’s demands regarding his care. All of the above, and more, was a long, difficult, but
ultimately rewarding lesson in learning to trust in the slow work of God. What if we all got in touch with our
intuition, curiosity and courage?
Two Leo Tolstoy quotes sum it up:
“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link
between Man [read men, women and children] and Nature shall not be broken.”
And
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
