North Shore of Lake Superior September 2020

“In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.”
— Howard Thurman

Sunlight is dancing on the waters today as I rest in God’s good gift of creation. It glitters and bounces on ripples along small waves.

I’ve slipped away for a few days to Lake Superior in Northern Minnesota. I’ve needed this time to reflect, to slow down  in my busyness  and simply give myself a break from what normal has become.  Today the water changes from Azure to the deepest blue of the sky as clouds temporarily block the sun.  Resting by the water has been for me  a place of tranquility and peace in the craziness of our world. A time to pause and to reconnect with my creator. This  has been Sabbath time.

A time to wonder as Walter Brueggemann does, how intrinsically we are connected to the one who designed us. Walter Brueggemann says of Sabbath, “Sabbath is the discipline of pause that celebrates the world as God’s good place for life, and that relishes the human role in creation as “image of God.”*

The psalmist too wondered at the place God gave us.

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them
Yet you have made them a little lower than the angels,
and crowned them with glory and honor. Psalm 8:3-5


*Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament The Canon and Christian Imagination, pg 36