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Fully Known

Spatterdock or Yellow pond or Cow lily, Millersylvania State Park, WA USA

St. Paul wrote these words of our “knowing partially” toward the end of his dissertation on love. History has held what St. Paul wrote to be true, our knowledge, our skills, and our abilities will all fade away, only to be replaced with other achievements that will also fade away. What we see and understand today is not the complete picture. However, God has given us the ability to participate in things that will not fade away. The things that do not fade, the things we will be known for in heaven, are those things done for, with, and through love (see Matthew 25: 31-46). Love is not an emotion but an act of the will, for to “love is to will the good of the other as other.” (St. Thomas Aquinas – biblical example is the Story of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:25-37).

An additional reflection on the similarities between the speed of light and love is on our website at https://www.anaturewalkwithgod.com/learnmore and read Learn More “Reflection # 3 – The Speed of Love”.

Peace be with you.

Your friends at A Nature Walk with God.

Rooted in Jesus

Western Hemlock, McLane Creek Nature Trail, WA USA

This large western hemlock tree started as a small seed that fell on top of a tree stump. The seed germinated, and as if by faith, its roots penetrated deep into the stump, gathering nutrients and moisture. Then its branches and needles reached upward, as if by hope, searching for sunlight in the deep shadow of the forest floor. Today it stands tall, built upon where the stump once stood, and as if by love, the hemlock sows its seed across the woodland forest below, yielding fruit a hundredfold. A lot can be learned from a tree and the words of the bible.

“But the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.” ~ Matthew 13:23

Let us tend to our soil, let us be rooted in the word of God which is Jesus Christ.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” ~ John 1: 1-5

Let us, rooted in Christ, be a light for the world, yielding fruit a hundredfold.

Peace be with you.

Your friends at A Nature Walk with God

Wildflowers

Learn from the way the wildflowers grow.

Smiling at the rain,

bending in the wind,

reaching up to the sky,

kissing the sun,

blossoming,

radiating color,

bringing forth life,

becoming what God intended,

a colorful light for the world.

Let us learn from how the wildflowers grow.

Worry is a thief. It robs us of the moment. It robs us of our colorful light. Jesus tells us not to worry but to trust in God. “If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?” So let us trust in the Lord and blossom into the people God meant us to be, radiating our colorful light to all through love of God and neighbor.

An additional reflection on living in the moment with trust is God is on our website at https://www.anaturewalkwithgod.com/learnmore and read “Reflection # 2 – Wildflowers”

Peace be with you.

Your friends at A Nature Walk with God.

Abba

Song Sparrow, Willapa Hills State Park Trail, Chehalis, WA USA

“Daddy” is perhaps the best translation for “Abba”. In this one word, Daddy, St. Paul is revealing the heart of God. God is love and he reveals himself to us as a loving father.

“For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” ~ Romans 8: 14-16

So Christians, let the spirit of God that dwells within you embrace your spirit with fatherly love and transform you into the children God desires you to be.

For more information on how God is a loving father go to the Learn More tab and read “Reflection # 1 – Abba”.

Peace be with you.

Your friends at A Nature Walk with God.

Power in Weakness

Fledgling Pacific Wren, Woodard Bay Conservation Area, Olympia, WA USA

What good can come out of weakness? St. Paul may have wondered the same thing. In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul reveals that he had a “thorn of the flesh” that could not be healed. God revealed through Paul the power of trusting in God, even when prayers seem not to be answered.

“Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Cor 12:10

Prayer in weakness and suffering requires great faith. God’s grace, working through great faith, is the strength that Paul is referring to, St. Paul is a spiritual role model. The weaknesses, insults, persecutions and constraints that St. Paul endured are being transformed into God’s glory, even today. Paul could not have imagined the powerful works that God has exhibited through the ages by his faith-filled prayer of uniting his weakness and suffering to those of Jesus Christ.

So, at those times when you are reminded that you are weak, go to prayer, listen to the Lord. Jesus is a master physician. Ask him what he is trying to teach you through your troubles. Give your weakness, even your suffering, to the Lord in prayer and trust that the master physician will work his miracles in transforming you, and others, into the people you were meant to be, just as he did for Paul and is continuing to do in the Church that St. Paul loved so very much.

Peace be with you.

Your friends at A Nature Walk with God.

Mothers, Heaven Sent

We know little of the first 30 years of Jesus’s life. Since, God is God, he could have come into this world anyway he choose. For instance; God could have entered this world from a mountain top, walked to the river Jordan, been baptized by John and then began his ministry. Instead, God became man through a woman. God, the father, gave Jesus, his son, the gift of having a mother, the best mother that ever lived.

I am so very blessed. My mother was great, as was my grandmother. Then I have been blessed by watching my wife lovingly care for our children. I have also been surrounded by great mothers, including my daughter and daughter in-law, and many others. Mothers teach us how to love.

If you need a mother to teach you how to love, Jesus gives you his mother to be your spiritual mother. Hold her hand when you pray to her son. Feel her love. The Father’s gift to Jesus and Jesus’s gift to you.

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home. John 19: 26-27

Seeking

Black-headed Grosbeak, McLane Creek Nature Trail, Olympia, WA USA

God has made us seekers of him and we do find him. He is in the beauty and magnificence of nature. He is in the consistency and precision of science. He is in the heroic self-giving of loving relationships. Most astounding of all; however, God is a seeker too. He seeks each and every one of us. In his innermost being God has revealed himself as love. A lover seeking his beloved. A love so deep that “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

So seek God; but perhaps more importantly, let him find you.

A Great Cloud of Witnesses

It was a beautiful spring day and as I walked under the flowering trees it felt like the saints in heaven were surrounding me, witnesses in faith to the glory of God. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith (Hebrews – 12:1-2).

Sober and Vigilant

This young mule deer buck, wearing a broken antler and scar across his snout, with eyes forward and ears pointed back, has learned to be sober and vigilant.

So what do we need to be vigilant about? Perhaps many things, but one thing we need to be vigilant about is always having our eyes focused on God and the needs of our sisters and brothers, and not on our inward self.

Vigilance; however, does not mean living without joy. On the contrary, let us live life in abundance (see John 10:10). We have an infinite God and he desires us to dwell in his infinite love. We do this by participating in the self-giving love of Jesus Christ through prayer and service to the common good.

Small Things / Great Love

Female Anna’s Hummingbird on nest, Olympia, Washington USA

It is said that when Mother Teresa talked to a person no one else in the world existed to Mother Teresa except the person that Mother Teresa was talking to at that moment. Mother Teresa was a master at living in the moment, making the moment, in all its small, beautiful nuances, count. If you look at her great accomplishment of establishing missions throughout the world to take care of the most vulnerable, most of what she accomplished was done by doing small things with great love.

The foundation of Mother Teresa’s capability of doing small things with great love came from prayer and her love of Jesus. Each morning following mass, Mother Teresa would spend an hour in quiet prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

Mother understood that a life filled with small acts of charity was what Jesus expected of the Christian. “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.” (Matthew 25: 35-36)

Mother Teresa took Jesus’s words to heart for in each person she met she saw Jesus. “I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him.”

Let us live the simple life. Let us do small things with great love. Let us see Jesus in each person we meet.

To Believe

Mallard drake, McLane Creek Trail, Washington USA

He has Risen!

Everything is Yours

Best wishes for a prayer-filled Holy Week.

Be Courageous in Love

California Thrasher, Elfin Forest Preserve – Lupine Point Overlook, Morro Bay, CA

Everything that Breathes

Canadian Goose, McLane Creek Nature Trail, Capital State Forest, WA

Praise him with trumpet sound;

praise him with the lute and harp!

Praise him with the timbrel and dance;

praise him with the strings and pipe!

Praise him with sounding cymbals;

praise him with loud clashing cymbals!

Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord! ~ Psalm 150:3-6

The Psalms is the prayer book of Israel, the prayers that Jesus read. They are honest about the human condition, are honest about God, and are honest about our need for God. Often modern readers get turned off on the graphic descriptions of war and hostility in the Psalms, but I recommend reading these ancient prayers in an allegorical or analogical way. For instance each and every one of us; fights a battle if only in our minds and hearts, has to overcome obstacles that seem insurmountable, has to examine our conscience and ask God for forgiveness, and perhaps most of all has a reason to praise our Lord for blessings. The psalms is a great book of prayer that covers almost all conditions of the human experience, so take a minute and let God talk to you in the book of Psalms.

Love is a Gift

“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)

“Certainly as the Lord tells us, one can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (John 7:37-38). Yet to become such a source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God (John 19:34)” ~ Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est #7

Freedom is Turning Toward You

Today’s understanding of freedom, to do whatever one wants, whenever one wants, caves a person’s world in on one’s self, making the person captive to the never completely fulfilled desires of pleasure, power, prestige and security. The biblical understanding of freedom is a freedom toward the love of God and away from selfish desires, leading to true freedom. A true freedom to love others and enjoy, and understand, all the beauty around us for what they are, God’s creation, not our possession. Trusting in Christ, in what he has said and what he is asking of us, leads to true freedom. A freedom in God. A freedom each person was created to enjoy.

Power, Love and Self-Control

What does power, love and self-control look like? In nature it might look like a beautiful sunset but what does it look like in humanity? Look at the crucifix. Read the gospel accounts of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. Read the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus asks us to take up our cross and follow him, to be like him, full of power, love and self-control.

For nearly two thousand years Christians have set aside six weeks of prayer, fasting and sacrifice, a time called Lent, to focus on following Jesus, taking up their cross, and become practitioners of power, love and self-control. Easter is coming. Jesus is inviting you to follow him, to be like him.

My Secret Heart

Long-billed Curlew, Morro Bay State Park, CA USA

King David was said to have a “heart like God” (1 Sam 13:14; Acts 13:22). Yet David, the boy that slayed Goliath, the king that danced before the arc of the covenant, fell far grace. David went from defeating Israel’s enemies in battle to laziness, to adultery, to murder in a short period of time. How did David fall so far, so quickly? Was it pride? Was it power? Was it selfish pleasure? Psalm 51 is ascribed to having been written by David after he was confronted with his sin of going to Bathsheba and then killing her husband, Uriah. David’s words in Psalm 51 show an understanding of our need for a prayerful self-examination, an examination of our secret heart, least we fall from the Lord.

Mother

“She is clothed with strength and dignity, and laughs at the days to come. She opens her mouth in wisdom; kindly instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband, too, praises her.” (Proverbs 31:25-28)