I'm standing on the shore of a small island tucked away in the corner of a remote Canadian wilderness lake. My friend and I have come by canoe, some 40 miles by paddle and portage, to be watching now on this special spot as the sun rises. My heart is taking it all in. The tall pines and granite boulders that form an emerald necklace around the still waters in the day's first light. The quiet mist hanging by some celestial thread, as if to bring us an iridescent cloud of our very own within arm's reach. The eastern horizon with its new morning palette of pink and orange and azure. The magical call of a loon somewhere just beyond sight.
To say I'm thankful at this moment is perhaps the largest understatement I can imagine. It goes beyond ordinary gratitude. It's more the kind of joy that is entirely pure and whole, a spiritual contentment and peace, one that feeds life with the substance of what I know I truly require. And for me, the present beauty and grand design of nature defines only a small part of what has brought out this response. Beyond all of what surrounds me in the unspoiled wilderness rests an abiding sense that God does love me—that He loves us all.
For some time I've been feeling a growing conviction that anything good and beautiful must naturally express qualities of God, or infinite Soul, if it is to have any real value. And God has been showing me more and more that this truth expresses itself in the very substance of our own lives—that we, too, express radiant qualities of Soul. That we each express God's grace. And we reflect God's perfect love. This is who we really are.
