Sacred Grove

Sacred Grove, oil on canvas, ⓒ 2008. Edward Obermueller 

On the mountain, near my home in Wyoming, snowshoeing. Through blue-crisp powder up to our waists, we—I and my brothers and our wives—stumble upon a scene that I can only describe as an outdoor cathedral. Light filters through tall pines like stained glass. The trees stand humbly, numinous under their hoarfrosted boughs, silently worshipping something larger, otherworldly. 

This is the season of the church year called Epiphany, celebrating the “aha” of God’s revelation. Can that come through nature?

This is also the season called “ordinary time.” It celebrates the epiphany of the ordinary! This time, this place, this earth, taken up by God and infused with His glory. Spirit revealed in nature; in the specific, particular, and concrete.

The whole earth is full of God’s glory. (Isaiah 6:3) Can God draw near to me through a place? In his bodily “thereness” Jesus takes us again to nature, time and space. Jesus heals the split between the material and the spiritual. He gives us a place, a sacred here 

and now.

Lord, Where is the sacred grove near me? Do I need to go there now? Amen.

ORDINARY TIME by Ann Applegarth 

I wake 

and pray,

break fast,

embrace the day,

then wash

and such,

do work —

but not too much.

I sing

and write.

I walk the dog

each night.

In all these homely tasks

I know

my God is near —

extraordinarily mine

in blessed ordinary time.

(From The Cresset magazine, Valparaiso University)

Images from another sacred grove, my wife's family cottage in Northern Wisconsin: