Nature, Life and Being

Nature, Life, and Being by Joy Mead (Wild Goose Big Book of Worship Resources, pg 147-151)

Be gentle as you walk on the good earth,

our home and lifegiver. Touch with kindness

all that has being and shares with you this sacred space.

Smell the subtle scent

of bluebells in the spring; hear the summer wind

in the grass, feel it

light on your back;

touch the trees,

sense their nearness. Know the fragility

of wondrous plants.

Listen with care

to the blackbird’s song,

the lark’s morning joy

and the cuckoo’s haunting call. Hold in your heart

these sounds of life.

Let the precious wetness

of falling rain baptise you. Breathe deeply, fill your lungs with the air that keeps you alive; understand the need

to sustain its breathability.

Be still and connect in the silence

what you are

with what you value.

Never overvalue your own significance nor undervalue it. Know yourself

one small, vulnerable part.

Feel your feet on the earth

and know the joy of your place in the natural world.

Know our human need for beauty.

We fall in love with all life in beautiful places.

Rediscover your sense of wonder and share it with others –

it might yet be our salvation.

Give attention to life’s littleness – contemplate what it means

to honour the small things –

the seeds and sunlight –

that sustain our wider being.

Learn to simply be and live wholly where you are, and who you are and who you are with.

You, you’re another me; me ... I’m another you. We’re neither subject nor object. We’re one with each other

and the world.

On this sense of equality our survival may depend.

Love life as you live it. Don’t try to outdo it.

Let beauty break through your frantic need to do.

We’re the between people, the people on the edge

of catastrophe.

Our obsessive doing

may be our destruction. But we have, it seems, one last chance to save ourselves and honour our beautiful earth.

Look at your own hands,

small but with infinite possibilities.

Big problems need small solutions.

Put out your hand to those who have gone. Their wisdom and faithfulness stays with us.

Be prophetic and creative; reach out to those

who are to come

with love in your heart.

Listen, feel, touch and smell; think and imagine –

these are sacred acts.

Real life is what it is

not what you might be told it is. Listen to the earth

and life as you meet it.

Watch and never turn away. Discern what is needful.

Seek to overcome the greedy child who is inside each one of us

and would take to itself

what belongs to all.

We can no longer sleep unaware nor be silent while others sleep. May the sound of our own voices disturb our foolish slumber.

Awake and see!

Awake and tell what you see! Awake and seek

a sustainable and fairer future for all life on earth.

Shared by Rev. Dr. Melodie Jones Pointon, Senior Pastor