Discovering God in Nature

Dear Friends,

I have been silent for a long time. It was a long silence and I have my favorite excuse of being too busy ... But I decided to break my silence. I have been reading the posts and it has been an experience in itself.

So I felt if I don't give back after gaining so much that would not be right. So all you friends who inspired me through their posts in the blog, this is dedicated to your wonderful sharings.

First I will write about one of the experiences in the Discover program. This happened during the session discover God in Nature.

When we were asked to go out and discover God in nature, I felt very enthused. For me I feel closest to God when I see the beauty of His creation in nature. And the session was early in the morning and my intention at first was to sit some where in the garden and have a wonderful time of being with Him. But I never knew what our wonderful Lord had in store for me that beautiful morning. That is one thing that I have experienced, when we go looking for his footsteps, or in search of his love actively seeking, He gives us Glimpses of himself and experiences of His wonderful love in unexpected and profound ways.

But alas I am too busy to seek him out in the daily rigors of life :-(. Let me stop all my ranting and get into my experience now.

But when I decided to seek Him. The first thing that I saw when I got out was the "Chethy" flowers in full bloom.


(Picture of a Chethy flower like the one I found that morning)

My first urge was to pass by and find a cozy spot in the middle of the garden where I could enjoy the nature around me and tell my lord in the silence of my heart how much I loved him that morning. But I was not able to pass by those flowers that morning. So I decided to sit by those flowers and find out if God wanted to tell me some thing. I sat on the cement ledge by the side of the Chethy plant and started looking at the flower. In no time He opened my eyes to look at the ordinary flower in a new way.

The first thing that attracted me was the redness of the flowers. Although I had looked at the chethy flower numerous times before, that morning the redness of the flowers evoked a new emotion with in me. Suddenly the redness of the chethy flower symbolized the love of my Lord.

For me the red colour represented the intense love of my Lord. It represented the love with which He poured out His blood for me on the calvary. Its the same love which prompted him to share His body and Blood in the institution of the Eucharist so that I could be one with him. The red represented His love which was passionate, intense, all consuming and self giving. It was new and fresh that morning like the bunch of that freshly bloomed flowers in the morning.His love manifested freshly in those flowers and in my life was there for me to relish and enjoy that morning.

Then I started looking at the flowers more closely. Those flowers each of them although were simple to behold, were individually beautiful and different in their own way. They seemed to me to represent the small and big instances of His love that I had experienced in my life. Each one was different in its own way and yet beautiful. And when all those instances of love combined together in my banquet of life, my life became beautiful and meaningful. Each day of my life, he was there with his bunch of fresh and intense love specially made for me. All through the day he drops a beautiful instance of his love into my day, so that at the end of the day, I am left with a bunch of his love to thank and praise him at the end of the day. I am left with a beautiful bunch which I can leave at his feet before going to sleep enfolded in His arms.

Then suddenly I started notice the gaps between the flowers. The voids which looked dark and empty. As I looked at the individual spaces, they seemed with out beauty, standing out dark and with out colours in between the beautiful red flowers. Suddenly they reminded me of those moments in my life where I could not find the love of my Lord. Moments where I needed the love of my Lord to comfort me, to uphold me, to soothe my pain. But I could not find His love, I could not feel His love. Those moments stared back at me like those voids, dark, ominous, evoking fear. Suddenly God made me take a step back and see the whole bunch of flowers again. Now those dark voids were the ones that gave definition to the individual flowers. Those dark voids added beauty to that bunch of flowers. With out those voids, those gaps, the whole bunch of flowers would have been a red sphere. Because of those voids, the beauty of those flowers were enhanced. They became more defined. It gave me a new insight into those moments of pain, rejection, sorrow, fear, etc. They enhanced the beauty of my moments enjoying the love of my Lord. They gave more meaning to those moments of love. With out those voids in my life, my reunion with the love of my Lord would not be so intense, so precious, so much to be cherished. So for a moment I bowed my head in thanks, my heart brimming with joy for the infinite love of my Lord and the beautiful life he has made much more beautiful for me tan that bunch of flowers.

With that let me finish and say to my Lord I love him and to you my friends you are the visible signs of His love, flowers in the bunch of my life He has given.

Love and Prayers ....