"Lonely meditation, the study of nature and the contemplation of the universe lead the solitary to aspire continually to the maker of all things."
-Jean-Jacque Rousseau

Hello all! Over here in the Czech Republic, the Indian summer is holding (for which I, as a born and raised Southerner, am quite grateful) and classes are under way- which in typical CZ style means I go to class around 6 hours a week, unless my professors are out of the country or at the doctor’s office.

Needless to say, these elements combined, I find myself with quite a bit of time. As you know, for me, this is a novel concept. But I am coming to see that we are commanded to live times of stillness and rejuvenation: God has set the example as the Supreme Creator God who always is and always will be when he marked the Sabbath on which to “rest.” The Israelites were commanded to celebrate the year of Jubilee and to allow the land to rest itself. The Psalms tell us over and over to “be still.” Our bodies and minds were created in the light of honoring such a Sabbath. Now, this is not to say that we are not to toil hard the other 6 days, 6 years, etc. because we know we are to do everything assured that we do it for and in the Father’s name… and that includes resting.

And so I have passed many an afternoon following Jesus up the mountain (well, perhaps it is more a hill though it sure feels mountainous when you trek up it) or out into the forested hills of the Moravian countryside. There seems to be something about conversations with our Lord that seem clearer out there in the great beauty that envelops one as it, itself, reflects the great Beauty, with I as only an onlooker.

With C.S. Lewis, I wonder, “What more (than witnessing the beauty of Nature), you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more… We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words- to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become a part of it.”

“We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so… When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather the greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch” (“The Weight of Glory”).

Can you imagine? Or in the chaos have we forgotten how? Perhaps it is time, as Jesus said, to be little children. To rake together and jump into a pile of fallen autumn leaves which can but whisper of a glory we see in faded colors. To rustle our imaginations and to delight in the possibilities.

“Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”