Friday, May 8, 2020
Sarah McEvoy
Where do you see God’s love at work in the world?
A Song of Creation:
II The Earth and its Creatures
Let the earth glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O mountains and hills
and all that grows upon the earth,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O springs of water, seas, and streams,
O whales and all that move in the waters.
All birds of the air, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Glorify the Lord, O beasts of the wild,
And all you flocks and herds.
O men and women everywhere, glorify the Lord,
praise him and highly exalt him for ever.
Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed a change in the sounds of the city around me. The traffic is gone. The beep, beep, beep of the truck in reverse quieted by deliveries on hold. No honking horns or music from passing cars, windows open to the warming weather. No voices. No shouts of “hello” between friends on the square. No street musicians on the steps of North Church. No activists gathered with “honk if you support” posters held high. The city is quiet. The cacophony of our daily lives has given way to the rhythm & sounds of the earth and its creatures.
Daily walks have become my routine in pandemic quarantine. Long walks through town and along the water have reminded me as Scott Bader-Saye says so eloquently,
“to see the presence and flourishing of each aspect of the world around us as an act of giving glory, that is, an act of reflecting the radiant and transcendent beauty of God. Our tendency to see the world around us in a purely instrumental mode of grasping is interrupted by the language of prayer that invites us to see all icons of beauty, as reminders of God’s fingerprints on creation.”[1]
My daily walk doesn’t pass without the distinct sound of “birdie, birdie, birdie,” the cardinal’s call. In the quiet and the stillness I can usually find the beautiful bird on a branch somewhere close. The quiet, the stillness, more palpable now, allow me to hear God’s love in the sounds of his creation.
I’m praying that you hear God’s love in creation today.
[1] Scott Bader-Saye, Formed by Love (New York, New York. Church Publishing, 2017), 65
