Posts tagged ‘Sierras’
Weekly Photo Challenge: Beyond
The beauty of the Sierras that John Muir loved . . . at Lake Tahoe.
Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray, where nature heals and gives strength to body and soul alike.
- John Muir
How Can We Contain God?
King Solomon, who built a great temple to “hold” God, knew that God could not be contained there.
Where are the places we try to contain and constrain God?
No matter how wonderful and perfect they may seem to be to us, it would do us well to remember, in the words of a song by Jesse Manibusan, “God Is Bigger”.
Who can contain God?
Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the presence of the whole community of Israel, and stretching forth his hands toward heaven, he said,”Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth below, you keep your covenant of mercy with your servants who are faithful to you with their whole heart.
Can it indeed be that God dwells on earth? If the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple which I have built! Look kindly on the prayer and petition of your servant, O Lord, my God, and listen to the cry of supplication which I, your servant utter before you this day. May your eyes watch night and day over this temple, the place where you have decreed you shall be honored, may you heed the prayer which I, your servant, offer in this place. Listen to the petitions of your servant and of your people Israel which they offer in this place. Listen from your heavenly dwelling and grant pardon.”
1 Kings:8:22-23, 27-30
Why Is It So Difficult for Us to Believe?
Today’s reading in the 3rd Thursday of Advent is from Isaiah 54
So God has sworn not to be angry with you,
or to rebuke you.
Though the mountains leave their place
and the hills be shaken,
My love shall never leave you
nor my covenant of peace be shaken,
says our God, who has mercy on you.
This snowy, seemingly immovable, granite mountain is in Yosemite.
We can believe that the mountains can’t be moved, but we have difficulty believing that God’s love would never leave us.
Let our Advent task be to find our hope in the love of God toward us, stronger and more faithful than anything we know.
Advent Teaches Us to Wait
Sister Joanne Cullimore’s watercolor of Mt. Whitney, named Whitney Portal, speaks to our hearts as Isaiah does in today’s reading for the Second Wednesday of Advent. Waiting on God brings us strength . . . the strength of these granite mountains, created by our God.
- Whitney Portal
From Isaiah 40
To whom can you liken me as an equal? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these things. . .
. . .Do you not know or have you not heard? The Lord is the eternal God, creator of the ends of the earth.
God does not faint nor grow weary, and God’s knowledge is beyond scrutiny. . .
God gives strength to the fainting; and for the weak makes vigor abound.
Though the young faint and grow weary, and youths stagger and fall,
They that hope in the Lord will renew their strength, they will soar as with eagles’ wings;
They will run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint.
Teach me Lord, teach me Lord, to wait.
What Is My Fishing Practice? Am I Faithful to My Spiritual Practice?
Sisters Pat and Judy hiking back from their fishing trip in the Sierras.
This morning (the Feast of St. Andrew) during our morning prayer, Sister Millie reflected on the Gospel reading. She talked about those who fish, and how sensitive they become to the movement of the water – the movement of the fish – the movement of the boat. Perhaps that helps create in them a sensitivity to the Spirit. Could that be why they were able to drop their nets and follow so suddenly (seemingly) and completely. They may have been predisposed by their practice.
What is my practice? Am I as attentive to my “practice” as these fishermen were?
[Jesus] said to them,
“Come after me, and I will make you fishers of people.”
At once they left their nets and followed him.
- Matthew 4:19-20
We Need Beauty
Lake Shealor, in the Sierras
Creation – Poetry – Music – Art
You could add the ways that beauty preaches to you, and what it says.
According to John Muir, “Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play and pray, where nature heals and gives strength to body and soul alike.”
