A Walk in the Forest

 

           Yesterday I was fortunate enough to hike high into the Rocky Mountains.  I say fortunate because altitude slows the pace. Secondly, the parking spaces are a premium this time of year. The ranger at the entrance indicated no parking spaces for five miles. So with prayer in hand we drove to the trail head, and low and behold found a parking space.  From there on, and the next three hours I beheld nature: light, animals, insects of all kinds, wild flowers,waterfalls, and rock formations that only God could arrange. Thomas Merton says, "For these are the discoveries, and it is for this that I am high on the mast of my ship (have always been) and I know that we are on the right course, for all around is the sea of paradise". — Thomas Merton in Turning Toward the World

I feel these words of Merton explemplfy the constantly changing beauty of the forest, and how that change can and does resonate with the depths of the human soul. It's about sidling up next to the unanswerable while noticing what happens to my perspective about life, reality, and eternity as time is spent there. I don't believe I'm supposed to comprehend it. I believe I'm mostly invited simply to be open to it.

"The more I study nature the more I stand amazed at the work of the creator."

Louis Pasteur