Frost and chill, bless the Lord. Daniel 3:69 (NAB)

Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, Who is the day and through whom you give us light. And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendor…. Saint Francis of Assisi

Everyone in the course of a lifetime experiences rare and wonderful epiphanies in nature when God momentarily lifts the veil of our unknowing and shows us his face. Here’s one of mine:

January, 2000

At approximately six o’clock this morning, I put on my running gear and ran six miles along the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The temperature was in the upper teens or lower twenties! I almost turned around at several points in the first few minutes of the run. My hands were so cold that I had to keep twirling my fingers just to keep the circulation going. My strange high-tech running suit managed to cover practically every part of me. But there was a small, one-inch triangle of flesh at the bottom of my neck where the zipper of my suit did not come all the way up to meet my ski mask. In that biting cold, I was introduced to this small spot on my body that I had never noticed before. When I reached the frozen river, I saw the Boston skyline in a gradually more oranging sky and was grateful that I had not turned around and missed this. A little farther on, the trail left Storrow Drive and went through a park area where all I saw were trees on my right and the river on my left. While running beside it, I spent a while observing the thin sheet of ice that had formed on the surface of the river. Twenty minutes into the run, I emerged from a particularly engrossing and absorbing conversation with God to realize to my great surprise that I was no longer cold. All body parts were warm and comfortable even my newfound little spot! I was awestruck at my body’s ability to regulate its own temperature, even in these conditions. Fifty minutes into the run, I had come full circle and was home again-happy that it was over, but a little sad, too. Like Adam in the fresco on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, for just a moment I felt the touch of God on my flesh.

So, what’s your story?

SUGGESTED SCRIPTURE PASSAGES

GENESIS 1:1-2:4: The creation story

JOB 38-41: The Lord speaks of his creation

PSALM 8: The Lord’s majesty

PSALM 29: The God of glory thunders over mighty waters

PSALM 104: Bless the Lord, O my soul

PSALM 145: One generation shall laud your works to another

DANIEL 3:52-90: All things bless the Lord

MATTHEW 6:25-34: Consider the lilies

COLOSSIANS 1:3-20: By him, all things were created

PRAYER POINTERS

If I am currently experiencing one of these moments of epiphany with nature, then I bask in the wonder of it. I stay with that moment as long as possible. I sit in the leaves, climb the tree, wade in the river. Through it all, I recognize the Creator’s presence in the very essence of his creation, and I praise God for it.

I read slowly through Daniel 3:52-90 and then write my own stanzas to reflect my own personal experience (for example, “Leaf and tree, praise the Lord. Mockingbird and mosquito, praise the Lord”).

I record this moment in my journal. I write a poem or a song about it. I paint a picture or mold a sculpture with clay. I take some memento of the moment (a leaf, a pebble) and place it next to my computer or on the kitchen windowsill; I allow that little object to take me back to the place several times throughout my day.

I respond to God’s awesome gift of creation by letting God know how overwhelmed I am by its beauty and grace. Perhaps I will make some commitment to God as a response to this divine gift of creation.

RELATED ENTRIES

Body, Content, Evening, Grateful, Joyful, Love, Quiet

WORDS TO TAKE WITH YOU

Earth’s crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God; and only he who sees takes off his shoes.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Glory be to God for dappled things

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced-fold, fallow, and plough;

And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

-“Pied Beauty,” Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.