I hope that the weather where you live has been as interesting as here in the Washington area–unpredictable, unseasonable, and gorgeous.  In recent months, nature has been speaking more deeply to me of God (for example, in the breathing trees).  I’m grateful to be gaining eyes that more easily see God in the things God has made, makes, and sustains.  Part of the reason for this no doubt is slowly reading Elizabeth A. Johnston’s Creation: Is God’s Charity Broad Enough for Bears? (sadly out of print, but you can watch the address here).  Two quotes in there are helping me see all of creation with clearer sight.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1197) speaks with the voice of God:

“I, the highest and fiery power, have kindled every living spark and I have breathed out nothing that can die… I flame above the beauty of the fields: I shine in the waters; in the sun, the moon and the stars. I burn. And by means of the airy wind, I stir everything into quickness with a certain invisible life which sustains all….I, the fiery power, lie hidden in these things and they blaze from me.”

And then St. Augustine (354-430):

“Let your mind roam through the whole creation; everywhere the created world will cry out to you: ‘God made me.’…Go round the heavens again and back to earth, leave out nothing; on all sides everything cries out to you of its Author; nay, the very forms of created things are as it were the voices with which they praise their Creator.”

Romans 1.20 tells us, “Ever since the creation of the world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things God has made.” Creation was made to reveal through things we can see the things about God that we cannot see.  And it still does!  Just because Jesus–God come in flesh–revealed God most clearly to us doesn’t mean that creation stopped doing it after his visit.  The created world continues to show us who God is just as much now as it was doing before Jesus came.

So, consider taking some time to get outside and ponder our natural world…what of God do you see?  How might God be speaking to you through created things?  See clearly enough, and you might see God burning.  “I, the fiery power, lie hidden in these things and they blaze from me.”