Encountering the Divine in All Creation: Reflections and Insights from Lent

So here we are. How have you experienced God this Lent? What has changed over the past 5 weeks?

From this morning’s Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations from the Center for Action and Contemplation, guest writer and author, Barbara Brown Taylor, considers how God shows up in all things:

“The Bible I set out to learn and love rewarded me with another way of approaching God, a way that trusts the union of spirit and flesh as much as it trusts the world to be a place of encounter with God…. People encounter God under shady oak trees, on riverbanks, at the tops of mountains, and in long stretches of barren wilderness. God shows up in whirlwinds, starry skies, burning bushes, and perfect strangers. When people want to know more about God, the son of God tells them to pay attention to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, to women kneading bread and workers lining up for their pay.”

She goes on to admit that it is easy to miss these ever-available encounters with God. We all have experienced looking heavenward and looking for recognizable shapes to emerge. The same goes for looking at the smallest things in life where if you look carefully, details emerge. At our Lenten Book study, I shared the molecule of happiness. Well, really it is a protein carrying, rather “walking” the endorphin along a neurotransmitter.

You still have time. You have this next week to look for God. God in all things as the Hymn 405 (1982 Hymnal) goes. And with that, I’ll leave my thoughts here with the lyrics of this beautiful hymn.

Chorus: All things bright and beautiful, creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful, God made them all.

1. Each little flower that opens, each little bird that sings,

   He made their glowing colors, he made their tiny wings.

2. The purple-headed mountain, the river running by, the sunset, and the morning that brightens up the sky.

3. The cold wind in the winter, the pleasant summer sun, The ripe fruits in the garden, he made them every one.

4. He gave us eyes to see them, and lips that we might tell How great is God Almighty, who has made all things well.