When we stand in the presence of the natural world of creation, something very powerful occurs. Our heart senses a raw and vital connection between ourselves and the handiwork of God revealed in the trees and rivers. Our eye catches some small detail and we are opened up to union with the world around us and to the Creator of that world. It does not take a magnificent vista; it could be a snowdrop or the sound of the wind. Our lives are informed by the wonder, the awe, and the radical amazement hidden in the beauty of the wild. We somehow grow in step with all that is about us. Looking deeply into the real life scenes of simple nature poems can illuminate a rhythm to our days that we might miss without the pause afforded in the whisper of ice on a branch. Explore the unity that is our lives in this series of meditations-this retreat into God.
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N. Thomas Johnson-Medland. Bridges, Paths, and Waters; Dirt, Sky, and Mountains
Bridges, Paths, and Waters; Dirt, Sky, and Mountains
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
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A Portable Guided Retreat on Creation, Awe, Wonder,
and Radical Amazement
.....
Capturing the illusory nature of life and its images is as fleeting as grasping at mist, and yet in the activity of trying to make out what is before us and all around us we do find a few laconic and lapidary images that will make themselves into agents of rapture and amazement. We all find a few pearls of wisdom to help carry us through our days on this earth place. We are awakened a few times to the infinite glory by the stuff all around us.
These things, these things that we try to figure out and these things that we invest with meaning; it is these things that we can only hope to discover. If we find any of them in this one lifetime, we are home. We will have arrived. The arduous task of living has these words to offer: “Do not ever lose your ability to be moved by a sunrise. Do not ever stop crying when you see the ocean. Feel the wind blow through you. Be opened up by everything you experience.” We must be always interacting with the stuff of life. We must walk away from these encounters deeper people. These encounters are what nature call us into.
