First Revelation

This was originally written as a Prayer Note for Oasis Ministries for Spiritual Development https://www.oasismin.org/

When I got up this morning, I had the idea

to spend part of the day in

Serious Study.

Perhaps I would read the mystics,

or some accessible theologian,

or the Scriptures, themselves.

But the toads were trilling
and the white throats were singing,

and the redbud was bursting into bloom,

and my feet were itchy
and my spirit restless and I forgot

my high-minded intentions,

and went out to seek God.

I walked the woods, gazing at 

the expanses of skunk cabbage
and bowed low to examine the dwarf ginseng
and the emerging tips of mayapples.

I listened to hymns sung by robins

and titmice
and song sparrows
and peered at leaf buds
and spicebush flowers

and the trout lilies thriving under

as-yet-unclothed trees.

I sat at the feet of a yellow birch

on a bank above the rushing creek

and inhaled the scent of spring,

of new growth,

of life, 

and wonder,

and gloried in the arrival 
of the year's first Louisiana waterthrush.

God's First Revelation enfolded
and drew me into the Presence of

The One who imagined and then

breathed us all

into life.

I don't think I need to be reading

the mystics today,

after all.