This week I have been on vacation. As you can guess from the title of this post, we have spent our fall vacation in Oregon. I have said in a previous post that I am Irish by family heritage, and therefore a lover of words. This also makes me a lover of the land. Nothing makes the Irish in me more sentimental than beautiful scenery. And in this state, that is all you encounter as far as the eye can see.....
People encounter God in many different ways I have learned. Some people encounter Him primarily in the pages of the Bible. They feel His presence when reading scripture. Some encounter Him when listening to sacred music or in the words of a sermon. Others feel His presence through prayer and conversation with others. That moment when a friend says something and you just know that you were meant to hear just exactly those words at exactly that moment. You know that God is really doing the speaking. The final way that we encounter God is through His glorious creation. I think most of us experience God in all of these ways but we typically have one primary means. For me it is usually through people. This week it was through observing His handiwork in nature...
How often do we go through our daily lives and fail to notice beauty? Sure this was easy for me this week. I had nothing else to focus on besides my surroundings. And I was in a new and exciting place which I had never seen before. Everywhere I looked I saw something beautiful to behold. I wonder if the people who live here walk by these things every day and fail to see them? My guess is yes....
What I found this week was God pointing to His Glory and Majesty at every turn. In the crystal clear blue waters of Crater Lake. In the lichen clinging to the trees around the caldera. In the countless waterfalls of central Oregon. In the crags and crooks of the rocky coastal shore. From every intricate ecosystem of plant life surviving in the most unlikely of circumstances, to the sea lions lounging on the rocks as waves from the Pacific crashed wildly around them. What I could hear was God's song of creation. It is a love song to His children. "Look! See Me! I am He who has created all that you see! Worship Me as the
creator of everything. From the smallest single cell organisms to the soaring snow capped mountains. I am the master and creator of all". It reminds me of that line from the movie The Color Purple where Shug tells Celie that you should never walk thru a field and ignore the color purple because it pisses God off when you don't notice something so magnificent. Perhaps a bit crudely put, but true nevertheless. This week I made sure not to make that mistake myself. The earth and all that is in it truly proclaims the glory of the Lord. especially the little corner of it known as Oregon......Shalom!
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