Feb 9

Feb 9 The Artist Creator: A Meditation

Imagine yourself in nature…your toes in the grass, trees shooting up around you, the boundless and expansive sky above you. As you soak up the sights and sounds of nature, the birds chirping or the sound of a rippling river nearby, you hear the rustling of the wind on the leaves. The small leaf, with facets of colors in orange, yellow and red, gently swaying on the small limb of a branch, attached to this tree. It’s filled with life, wind, water coursing through its roots and veins, giving it life and breath. One tree in a vast expanse of forest, the light rippling over the branch.

Now imagine as you lift off like a bird flying from those waving trees into the blue skies, seeing the earth move beneath you. God’s creation. This big world spinning, and as you keep going higher, drifting through the clouds, through the atmosphere, to the weightless, vast dark expansive space, you look back to see our earth, this pale blue dot. Splotches of light seep through the dark: millions of stars on a midnight canvas.. Our solar system: spinning planets in glorious colors making the music of the spheres…into our very own galaxy and ever-expanding universe. All this…the leaf, the trees, the clouds, the planets, weightless space, our universe, designed by our Creator,

and with that creativity, the same breathtaking beauty, the same hands, made you.

Creator God, with your breath you exhaled the universal into existence. Yet we are part of that beauty, that creation, just as a leaf is part of the wind. We are made of star stuff. Let us be reminded that we are beautiful just as we are, the way you molded us to be the special, complex people you formed. And through this we praise you. “The trees clap their hands for you. Oceans dance for you. A billion suns rise for you.” (Gungor, Vapor) So we thank you this morning for imprinting your beauty onto our hearts,

God, you are the original artist. With the stroke of your brush you made your masterpiece. Your beauty is found in your creation: us. Help us see that we are made from the same things as the stars, and just as they fill this world with light, so can we. Holy One, grant us the wisdom to know what ACTION we can take to create more beauty in this world. Let our gifts today and actions this week generate more love in this world.

Amen.

Photo by Clemente Ruiz Abenza