reflections

Last fall, when our son Ron was staying at our cottage on Lake Michigan, working on his PhD,

he took a picture of the Lake each day.   He suggested later to me that when we came back to Michigan this spring, I might want to try this.   One of the fascinating things about Lake Michigan is that its vast expanse is always changing, right before one's eyes.   It can have many moods in just one day.   Just like us!   Our thoughts and moods and experiences are always changing too, but often we are so absorbed in them, we lose touch with that part of ourselves which is behind those thoughts, moods, and experiences, and can be consciously observing them.  Actually, it turns out that this is one of the most basic and universally recommended spiritual practices of the world's Wisdom traditions, as well as of contemporary spiritualities.   

     The Tao Te Ching, for example, reminds us that it is when a lake is calm and still, it most clearly reflects the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds, and so on.   Similarly, when our minds our still, they reflect Divine Presence and Beauty,  Cosmic patterns, and passing cloud-thoughts and feelings.  

      I would like to share pictures of the Big Lake each day with you, and accompany them with my reflections, hoping thus to also evoke yours.  

     The lovely sunset pictures above show the calm waters of the Big Lake reflecting the glory of the sun.   This moved me to ponder how I would want my mind to be like the Big Lake--vast, spacious, calm, reflecting the Glory of God.

     These pictures also reminded me of how important beauty is to me.   It is one of the greatest joys of my life that I am blessed to live in such beautiful places.   My soul is deeply nurtured and delighted by the Divine Beauty all around me.  I am reminded of the lovely Navaho chant:

"I walk in beauty.  Beauty is above me.  Beauty is below me, before me and behind me.

Beauty surrounds me."   I often chant that chant as I walk at sunrise or sunset on the beach,

immersed in the Glory of God.  (The Hebrew word for glory in the Bible can also be translated as beauty.  I love that!)

     May you walk in Beauty too, wherever you live.   And may that Beauty radiate from your soul, your face, your life, to bless others.