Blog # 50 CREATION

Blog # 50 CREATION Did you ever go into someone's home and notice on the mantle or on an end table a stone or a dried flower? You might have asked about it and found that it is very meaningful and precious to the person who lives in the house. The stone was the one the husband sent home from Europe during the Second World War, when it was not at all certain he would safely return. The flower is the one he and she picked together on the occasion when they walked in the woods and he asked if she would marry him. The flower is not the most beautiful, perhaps, nor the stone of precious material, but both the stone and the flower are very meaningful, not in themselves alone, but in the message they still bring, in the relationship they express, and in the love they nourish and recall. For those who know the story the stone and the flower are indeed precious. If you do not know their story the stone and the flower are real but not special . We have a situation that is parallel to this in the response and interpretation various people give to the reality of creation all around us. For a plumber who comes to the house to fix the kitchen sink the stone and the flower may not even be noticed. You could be in their presence as you passed through the living room on your way to the kitchen, but not even see them or only see them momentarily as they flashed through your sight on your way to accomplish the purpose or goal you had in mind for yourself. Some people live for long periods of time in the world as all of us know it and never see God's Hand or hear God's Voice. They treat the world in a very practical sort of way, use it to make a living, enjoy its pleasures, avoid its dangers, and appreciate its great beauty, but never see hear or touch more than the eye the ear or the skin can tell them. Other people live in the same world as the first group, with the same beauty and power, the same possibilities for pleasure or for pain, with the same colors shapes and sounds, the same sun and moon and stars, but they see and hear more, and differently. They know the story behind it all. They know God !