The following is a part of a meditation series that I write with my wife, called Somedays’ Meditations. We started it in our home parish for our tweens, and we thought it would be helpful to folks online as well. You can read the meditations here, or you can visit https://christchurchmanlius.org/somedays-meditations to see them as a collected volume.

Scripture:

1 The heavens declare the glory of God, *
and the firmament shows his handiwork.
2 One day tells its tale to another, *
and one night imparts knowledge to another.
3 Although they have no words or language, *
and their voices are not heard,
4 Their sound has gone out into all lands, *
and their message to the ends of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

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Meditation:

This is a really beautiful Psalm, isn’t it? What do you think it means? The heavens declare the glory of God? Here, “heavens” doesn’t refer to the place we go to after we die, where we’ll be with God and all the holy departed for eternity. Instead, here “heavens” means simply “the sky.”

Hmm, wait a moment. How can the sky declare the glory of God? The sky can’t walk, can it? Have you ever had a conversation with the sky before? Well, if you haven’t, then maybe you should try! Listen carefully to the sky and see what she has to say. Or, better yet, look up into the sky and see what she has to say.

In the Bible, we have two “testaments,” the old and the new. One tells the story of our people before Jesus, and the other tells the story of Jesus and what happened after he ascended into heaven. “Testament” means revelation, or showing, or information, and the Bible is our testament about God. But there is a third testament, and it is the natural world. Nature reveals things about God, and just like we study the Bible to understand God more fully, so too should we study nature to understand God.

What kinds of things do we learn about God from nature? That God loves life, loves beauty, gives protection to the weak, and much, much more. We still haven’t figured everything out about God (actually, we never will), but it sure is fun to learn!

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Activity:

Spend some time in nature with a friend or family member. Talk about God and what you love about nature. Remember that God created the natural world to be loved and cared for. Thank God for the trees, animals, and sky.