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While floating for moments like these, my fingers and spirit always seem eager to find their way into the psalms, it’s as if they feel in their environment a spirit of praise that can be appropriately matched by the words of David.
I started with psalm 142, and journeyed through to the end of 145. Verses jump out from each psalm and speak to me where I am currently at...
“when my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way.”
“Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul... Teach me to do your will, for you are my God, may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.”
“Lord, what is man that you care for him, the son of man that you think of him?”
“One generation will commend your works to another, they will tell of your mighty acts. They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works.”
“You open your hand and satisfy the desires of every living thing.”
These are warm words to my spirit as I witnessed the waking of earth this morning.
I’ve realized lately after refreshing my brain and watching several mind blowing TED talks on certain subjects (animation of a cell, the power and neglect of the right brain, the universe etc...) - mostly dealing with things created - that I fail in properly recognizing my place in creation. Somewhere in between the trillions of micro machines working in my body for a purpose of which they will never understand the overall picture, and the billions of galaxies floating around - each with billions of stars - in an uncomprehensible amount of space... all beautiful beyond our minds ability to imagine, all possibly working towards something of which they cannot understand wholly. I would like the theory of relativity to one day apply to the size and purpose of all the different groups of relative life. Click here and check out this picture that places side by side an image of a brain cell, and then a picture of what our brightest scientists theorize the known universe to look like (although it is ever expanding according to science, as well as scripture)... sink in it.
We humans don’t seem (in my opinion) to fit well into this picture... I heard recently that if all insects were to die, in three years all life on earth would be no more... if all humans were to die, in three years all other life on earth would flourish.
In my kayak this morning, I realized in a new way the immense amounts of salt water I was only allowed in my construction to float above, water spread out all across the globe, and the life that teems below reveals a whole new world we can only study, and give worship... Resting atop the weight of all this water, I got hopeful for one day there being a de-salination process that could bring fresh water to the just under one billion people who simply don’t have access... over half of the worlds hospital beds occupied by someone with a waterborne disease... ya, the same stuff we have coming out of our shower heads, sinks, spigots, toilets even... how are we to understand this condition in our culture?
Then I thought... oh wait... we do. The most incredible de-salination process is going on right in front of our eyes, all throughout the day, especially in the pnw! Evaporating salt water brought up in the clouds, energized and purified, then sent over creation on land, and poured down fresh quenching the thirst of all kinds of life...
So like David, amidst the confusion and tangles of muck I sometimes find myself in... I say Lord, “you are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” All living things - great as the vastness of the universe, and small as the electrons firing all throughout our bodies... Lord, you are my refuge, in this crazy brilliant land where perfect harmony can be found and life flourishes, great and small... you are my refuge.
I pick through Walden on occasion, and just read this yesterday. This whole chapter on Solitude reads of Thoreau's connection with the earth, and his core belief that "shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous..."
“Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains... I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts it’s way into the secret of things.” - thoreau
I have enjoyed your posts thus far, brother.
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