Whoa! What a long cold winter here in Vancouver, BC., but it was finally warm enough to pray outside on the deck today (see picture taken with my camera phone - that's the view from my deck). The last day that it was warm enough to do this was probably way back at the beginning of October, so it’s been 5 or 6 months since I have been able to sit in one of my favorite places to be with God.
Whatever helps me grow in my awareness of God is good and important for me to do and I realize we are all wired differently so we become aware of God in different ways. For a long time I didn’t feel comfortable with the thought, let alone actually doing it, that is connecting with God through nature. In my mind it had to be in church, or through scripture and that was it. Everything else was taboo.
I think connecting with God through nature began for me on a moonlit night cross country skiing just north of Squamish, BC. It was so quiet, and the stars were so bright and the mountains covered in snow illuminated by a full moon absolutely took my breath away. I remember thinking “there just has to be a God and he is absolutely brilliant and amazing for creating this scene that was beyond words."
Now, more and more, I sense God in the stillness of a tree, or the majesty of a mountain. It’s that sense of God that I think inspires some poets, painters, and musicians to try to communicate to us the love and glory of God through their art. It’s the indescribable Mystery that can only really be experienced in our hearts and through faith. We might see it and feel it as the sun cascades through the trees on a snowy day in the woods, and the glory of God, and what we are seeing, nearly knocks us over with its magnificent brilliance.
...I got to pray outside on the deck today.
