Sometimes when we read the Book of Nature closely, we learn the deepest lessons from the quietest, most ordinary things happening around us. We might suddenly notice what we've walked past many times before. We wake up to the sacred message wrapped in the plainest packaging - like a bare, naked tree. A tree whose very barrenness makes us say "Aha!"
An old friar named Brother Lawrence found God in the simple monastery kitchen pots and pans back in the 1600s. In the one little book he published, just 80 pages of 14 letters, he told a story about how a leafless winter tree helped him have an amazing spiritual awakening. The wise brother looked at the tree's stark emptiness, but then imagined beyond that. He pictured the branches filling with tiny leaves like hands clasped in prayer.
Suddenly, Brother Lawrence felt overwhelmed by the immense power of the Holy One. Realizing the beautiful life that would burst forth from that barren tree just knocked him down. Reading his story made us think how strange it is that we can sometimes see divine qualities in such ordinary things. But we'll totally miss those moments if we refuse to stop and pay attention.
What sermons might the woods preach to us from their intricate networks of branches, trunks, and sky-holding boughs? There are definitely tales of resilience - how they stand strong against tornadoes, droughts, ice storms and floods year after year. There are lessons about spiritual communion too - how the woods, birds, and scurrying critters all look out for each other, share food, warn about danger. Together they create ecosystems moderating temperatures, storing water, controlling humidity. What other time-tested truths are laid down like the rings in an old tree stump?
For us, the woods are our temple, our mosque, our church. The center aisle is just bare, threadbare earth, like Great Auntie's old Persian rugs. The vaulted halls are awash in shifting shadows and a numinous, celestial light bathing everything in a mystical glow. This is a holy place we return to again and again. It's a woods that preaches to us, filling us with a wordless wisdom. It's where we behold the awesome, inspiring mystery of how we hope heaven itself will one day be.
The practical and wonderful implication is that by paying close attention to the ordinary miracles of nature around us, we can be awakened to life's deeper spiritual meanings and possibilities. The trees, animals, and places of the natural world offer resilience, interconnectedness, and powerful reminders of the sacred that can sustain and transform us amidst life's difficulties. Nature's book is a perpetual source of wisdom and renewal if we choose to be present to its teachings.
(adopted from: Lawrence of the Resurrection, The Practice of the Presence of God)