Monday, September 14, 2009

For the Beauty of the Earth

One summer I was  traveling and enjoying the beauty of God's creation as well as the fellowship and love of friends. I bless God for all of that. The more I contemplate the beauty of creation and appreciate the love of friends old and new, the more amazed I am to be able to be alive. I have experienced a great deal of joy on this journey and it never ceases to amaze me how wonderful joy is I had the joy of visiting with friends I haven't seen in five years or more. Some of them had moved to new places since I had seen them last.

There was great joy in seeing them and I can now happily imagine them in their new places. With the friends who were still where I had last seen them, there was the joy of being in a familiar place with happy memories already connected to it. So in my ruminations while on the train, I got to thinking about joy. What is it, anyway? And how do we experience it? "The joy of the Lord is your strength," from Nehemiah 8:10, is one of my favorite Bible verses, although when I first heard it, I didn't really understand it. I wondered how God's joy could be strength to someone.

Then I wondered how someone could know God's joy exists at all. What makes God joyful? Sometimes we have a tendency to think of God as if God is a disciplinarian-type parent, always ready to sternly correct us. The last thing we can imagine at those times is God full of joy. Sometimes there are even people who only associate the idea of God with punishment and correction. They don't have any concept of God being joyful and full of the happiness that comes from being in a relationship.

I have felt like that at times, too. However, on the trains, as I have enjoyed the beauty of God's creation this summer, I have often thought of the passages in the first chapter of Genesis when it says that God created each part of creation and _called it good_. God may have been joyful at that time. Why not? I get plenty of joy by experiencing the beauty of God's creation even though I, of course, had nothing to do with it. How much more joy might the Creator have.

In Job 38:7, it says there was a time when "the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted with joy." And why not? Creation is truly not only beautiful, but marvelous and amazing. It is one thing to ride on a train through the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, but we also can find the beauty of creation in a tiny flower, or contemplating the smallest atomic particle or the life existent in the depths of the sea. When we see photos of the fascinating sights of the universe beyond the confines of our very beautiful planet taken by the Hubble telescope, we are amazed.


Our Creator has such a wonderful imagination and such a sense of fantastic beauty! And yet, I believe that God's joy and love extends beyond the marvelous creation that is visible to us. Each one of us is an incredibly beautiful creation of God, too. 

And we were created to bring God even greater joy than the Lord must have concerning the rest of creation. I believe God loves each person on earth more than All of creation. When we know God has that kind of joy when regarding us, we have some indication of God's love toward us.

It is at that point that the joy of the Lord may be our strength. How wonderful to know God's joy! How fantastic to believe you are loved to the point of God's great joy in you!  What would your life be liked if you really knew that kind of love? What would you be able to do if you were sure that God loved you -- and completely, absolutely, continually and eternally is full of joy concerning you? 

In Zechariah 3:17, it says “God will rejoice over you with joy; and you will rest in God's love, God will joy over you with singing” Can you imagine that? It's true. You are God's beautiful creation, and a child of God in Christ. When you really believe God loves you and receive God's love and blessings, God rejoices, just like it says He does. Isn't that amazing?
God is so good and so faithful -- and so full of joy! 

Alleluia!

Thank You, Lord. You are so wonderful. Thank You for the Holy Scriptures, for the beauty of the earth and for the wonder of the love shared with family and friends. Alleluia!  Amen.



Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com

Through Mountain Passes

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One summer Monday I took the bus from Montrose, Colorado to Albuquerque New Mexico and spent the morning driving up and down through Rocky Mountain passes.  The sun may have risen a bit before 6AM when the bus departed from the little station along the highway, but the only indications I had of it were the pinkish wisps of clouds and muted light in the east above the mountains of the western slope of the Rockies along the eastern horizon.  

My stalwart friends, Bill and Marty were up to see me off at oh-dark-thirty, and as the bus pulled out onto US 50 South and began to leave Montrose, I was thrilled to see the dawn echoed in magenta clouds over the western sky above the mesa.  It was such a blessing to be with them -- as it has been to visit many friends along the way.  The love of friends is one of the best examples of God's love in our lives.

I watched out of the windows as the town fell behind us and the ranches of the valley to the south appeared one after the other.  I was also watching for wildlife, but the first animal I saw was in a paddock edged with aspen trees.  It was a large white llama which stared as us as we noisily roared up the road.  The llama's expression seemed haughty as it regarded our loud passing.  I thought, "Ah . . . if a cat may look at a king, a llama may indeed watch a Greyhound."

In a few minutes later, the somewhat brightening grey dawn of the valley as we approached the town of Ridgway  was occluded by the deep dark shadows of the ever-narrowing canyons of Ouray.  Although I still wasn't very awake, and still looking for wildlife, I was treated to the view of two deer alongside of the road.  The deer both looked at the bus, though not as haughtily as the llama had.  Next I saw a skunk rambling away from the road into the woods.

When the bus moved into Ouray, the charmingly preserved mining town of Ouray I was happy to see it again.  We drove past the town's hot spring pool tucked in the canyon as it rises between 10,000-14,000 foot peaks.  There are six sections in the pool, each of a different temperature.  They range from normal cool water to 110 degrees.  It is wonderful to soak in the hot mineral water while enjoying the mountain views.  In the last few weeks I was blessed to sample this delight with my friends.  We also went hiking in an alpine valley filled with beautiful wild flowers, a burbling creek and lovely trees -- aspens and cottonwoods, lodgepole pines and ponderosa.  It was hard to leave the area.

The bus continued through the downtown area lined with refurbished old west storefronts.  As you leave Ouray going south you climb on a road designated as a "Scenic Byway"-- and boy -- is it ever!  

I was sitting on the starboard side of the bus and as we climbed up the switchback just out of town and turned right, I looked out the window and was treated to the view of a long drop to the creek.  Since the road is not very wide, it seemed like the drop off was very close to the edge. 


I kept watching down the cliffside and up at the peaks across the canyon in amazement as we continued to climb.  As we traveled, I noticed that the color of the rocks and soil in and around the creek began to change color.  At first they were a beige or light brown, and then the colors changed to a range from bright yellow to mustardy brown, and then more and more orange.  A few minutes later the dirt and rocks of the creek looked mostly reddish orange and then a rusty red. 

The canyons blocked out the sun and there was still only light in the sky when I caught a glimpse of a mountain between the canyon walls at the top of the pass.  upon seeing it, I understood the latest color of the creek.  The mountain was red!  And sure enough, as we got closer to it at the top of the pass, I saw a sign that said we were at about 11,000 feet in Red Mountain Pass.  What a delight it was to see the sun for the first time that day just to the left of Red Mountain As the bus began our descent of the pass by heading toward the first switchback on the way down, I looked into the woods to be treated to a wonderful sight.

A grey wolf had apparently been startled by the sound of the bus and was heading into an Aspen stand, looking at us over his left shoulder.  I was thrilled to see him, glad to get a glimpse of another creature of the wild.  The last time I saw a wolf was at Denali National Park in Alaska.  It is always a treat and a blessing.

Later in the day we drove through several other mountain passes and eventually totally descended to the mesas and lower level plains of southern Colorado and New Mexico.  I then got on an Amtrak train and enjoyed the ride to southern California.  It's so good to travel while being attentive to the Lord and to the beauty of creation as the Holy Spirit reveals it to us!
God is so good and so faithful.  

Creation is beyond beautiful and it is so wonderful to be part of it.  When you consider the amazing variety of life on earth -- on the land, in the air, and in the seas, the wonder of it all can overwhelm you.  What a joy it is to be alive and as human beings, to have been given stewardship of the earth.  It is too precious not to value and protect it.  How lovely to be given the gift of life on earth and what a treasure it is to be entrusted by God to help keep it.
Thank You, Lord, for the beauty of the earth and for the privilege of life.  
Help us to be good stewards and to take care of one another as well.  

Thank You for Your love and faithfulness.  
Help us to life in You and with You, 
serving You by loving one another and Your whole creation.  

 Alleluia!  Amen.             

All Bible passages are taken from The New Revised Standard Version
copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education 
of the National Council of the Churches of Christ 
in the United States of America. 

Used by permission. All rights reserved.



Kathleen Ware Harris  © 2013
kwharris777@gmail.com