QUIET VOICES:  No Speech, No Words

            The heavens declare the glory of God…

            There is no speech; there are no words

Their voice is not heard.

            Yet their voice is heard and

            their words to the end of the world.

                                                Psalm 19:1-4              

            Earth and heaven do have a voice. Perhaps it is more correct to say voices—Voices that are being heard throughout the world and will be heard to the end of time by those who choose to listen and to HEAR their words.

            How many of us have been stopped in our tracks and felt the life-giving awe of a glorious sunset or sunrise?  How many have stopped short when unexpectedly coming upon a grove of trees ablaze in brilliant colors of fall?  Have you ever looked up at the night sky and seen the living, moving patterns of the Northern Lights?  Or perhaps, if you’re from the plains of Western Minnesota or the Dakotas, your first glimpse of a towering mountain range? 

            I remember lying, one January morning, in the snow next to a gurgling mountain stream in a mountain valley a mile up from Lake Chelan in Washington State.  As I looked at the brilliant blue sky with its fluffy white clouds, I could see snow-covered mountain peaks.  Lying quietly watching and listening, I first heard the stream gurgle, then a bird or two raising their voices in celebration of the day.  And when I was eventually quiet enough, I heard a distant waterfall tumbling and dancing down the mountainside.  The sun shown on the snow creating crystal-like sparkles.  Heaven’s fairy dust, I thought, the voices of earth and sky going out through all the earth. 

            In the present times, the voices—the words of the heavens and the earth are not always beautiful.  The awesome power they speak can be of danger, of impending disaster, and death.  Hazy skies tell of poison gases and an ozone layer no longer protecting us as it once did; of water poisoned by chemical waste, of diminished bird and animal and fish populations due to lack of respect for their habitat of land, water, and sky—the beautiful gifts we have been given and have misused. 

            We have forgotten that we are one with nature—with the heavens and the earth and all living things.  It is imperative that we respect the awesome power that can create life or destroy it.  As co-creators it is up to us.  It is imperative that we listen with respect and take whatever action we can to love the earth, water, and sky, plants, animals, fish, and humans, and to help heal them.  It is in our nature and within our power to do so. 

            We can start by waking up to the beauty that surrounds us every day.  We so often take it for granted and do not see or hear it.  Look at the sky, the sun, moon, and stars, the birds, water, earth.  See the critters of the earth, large and tiny.  See, not only with your eyes; hear not only with your ears, smell, taste, and touch, as you would a lover—with your heart and soul.  Hear the awesome voice of the heavens; the quiet, powerful words the earth speaks; the music of the lakes, rivers, streams and of the oceans.

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            In times of chaos, it is imperative that we discover the voices of the heavens and the earth emerging from their chrysalis of darkness and death into a new world of beauty and peace.  Only when we see them with our hearts and souls will we fall in love, and in that love find our place as loving co-creators of the earth with which we have been entrusted.