On Holy Ground – a Meditation.

John writes ...

Sunrise in the forest. Credit: photowall.com

​'The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it …  for he founded it on the seas'
(from Psalm 24).

King David equated creation with ownership and went on to consider God’s awesome majesty, holiness and even ‘otherness’. Certainly, when we think about the universe in all its magnificence, awe is one of the emotions that we also feel. But look now at the previous psalm, the very well-known 23rd, in which David thinks of God as knowing him personally, nurturing, caring, providing for his needs – a very different picture from that of awesome majesty but equally valid. In our own reaction to God’s creation, many of us have experienced similar emotions, holding in tension the awesomeness of the creator with the understanding that he cares about us and indeed about the whole of creation. And so I end with this gentle exhortation entitled ‘On Holy Ground’ written by Peter Millar and published by the Iona Community*.

Go gently my friends:
feel the good earth
beneath your feet,
celebrate the rising of the sun,
listen to the birds at dawn,
walk gently under
the silent stars,
knowing you are on holy ground
held in love –
in the wonder of God’s creation.
​

Under the stars. Credit: Joshua Earle.

John Bryant

Topsham, Devon
October 2024

*50 New Prayers from the Iona Community, ed. Neil Paynter, Wild Goose Publications, 2012.