Month: August 2010

Focus

Some great poetry is found in the Psalms.  Psalm 1 talks about those who read the Bible … and love the words so much that they think about them all the time.  They are described “like trees growing beside a steam, trees that produce fruit in season and always have leaves.” [Contemporary English Version v.2-3]

What is your focus in life; what do you think about day and night?  God, our Creator, has a purpose for us and desires to be in relationship with us.  Francis Chan says, “God wants His Word to be a delight to us, so much so that we meditate on it day and night.”    Some of my favorite Psalms are: 1, 8, 23, and 100.  Don’t have a Bible?  You can read online at www.biblegateway.com or go to any bookstore and look for a modern translation such as the New International Version or a paraphrase such as the CEV.  That image is so inviting; don’t you want to be that tree refreshed by the stream producing fruit and flowers and providing cool shade?

Art

“Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” – Henry Ward Beecher

Your art, be it watercolor, poetry, music, or photography, reflects who you are.  The creative impulse is deep within us.  Our creativity is a gift from God, a reflection of His Creative nature.  When we create something of beauty, we feel a sense of satisfaction because we are following the instinct to create beauty.  The act of creating something allows us time to reflect, to use our hands and our brains, and to produce something which can be enjoyed. 

Nature

In The Outermost House, Henry Beston says, “Nature is a part of our humanity, and without some awareness and experience of that divine mystery man ceases to be man.  When the Pleiades and the wind in the grass are no longer a part of the human spirit, a very part of flesh and bone, man becomes, as it were, a kind of cosmic outlaw, having neither the completeness and integrity of the animal nor the birthright of true humanity.”

He talks about the “meditative perception of the relation of ‘Nature’ to the human spirit.”  This classic book is about his experience living on the shore of Cape Cod for a year and observing the natural world.

Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”  Through time spent outdoors in nature, savoring the creation, my spirit is refreshed by communion with God’s Spirit.