and then the rocks cry out.

So I’ll be gone for a few days taking my son camping, which always leads me to think down the same old rabbit trails.

Nature speaks.  I think that all creation teaches us things, desperately wants us to understand things.  That is part of why eastern religions have always had so much tantalizing appeal for me.  You see them taking their lessons from nature.  Entire dialogues can be based off of watching an ant work.

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”  (Luke 19:39-40)

In the Bible there are many times that it talks about nature speaking.  Jesus says that if his disciples don’t declare the kingdom coming, the rocks will cry out.  In other places it talks about nature groaning like a woman in labor, or the land crying out that blood has been spilled.

When I go into the mountains, I feel like every wild flower is preaching a million word sermon about God’s grace.

Sometimes when I see the harshness of society, all I can think is that if people listened to the mountains they might not act the way they do.

This world is a miracle we too often take for granted.  Out there in the hills somewhere there is a meadow that is singing a thousand praise songs,

and here, online, if I click on Facebook I’ll see a hundred Christian brothers and sisters beating each other up because they don’t all hold to the same political ideology.

We are supposed to be the crown of God’s creation, you know.

Yet the mountains are crying louder, and louder, and louder in my ears.