Letters to a Samuel Generation: Voices
written June 2003
“The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.”
There are fireflies in the trees tonight. They light up the dusk in a thousand little candle-flickers. There are fireflies in the trees; and the cicadas and the crickets and the frogs are chirping, and an inordinately large beetle, which drones as it flies like a tiny dive-bomber, keeps flying up and hitting its head on my window screen. It hits the screen and bounces off, flies around in circles until it gets its bearings back, and then does the whole thing over again.
Yes, and tonight I took a walk down the dirt road that looks almost white in the dusk, and I watched the deer bound across the field in a flash of white tail and leaping grace, while the beetles droned over my head and the first stars came out, and the smell of fresh-cut grass and wildflowers filled the air.
Here, where I live, I bless God every time I step out the door. Summer has come with its thousand secrets and I am here to see it and hear it and smell it and think how it all reminds me of Him.
The world, whose friendship is enmity with God, may have little to do with the Creator. But the Earth is still His. He is everywhere in it. He rides on the wings of the wind; He brings the rain and calls forth the harvest; He feeds the ravens and the lions; He is there when the deer calve.
Two years ago I lived in a very different wilderness: the Mojave Desert of California. There, too, we lived on a dirt road; and there, too, I would take walks in the dusk while coyotes called and ravens settled in on Joshua trees for the night. Life wasn’t always easy out there, no more than it is here, and sometimes when I walked I would do so with my head bowed, my eyes cast down, the dirt all I could see.
And then one day I looked up, and there were the mountains: snowcapped, glowing white and pink and purple in the sunset. The lights of the town sparkled in the dark foothills, but the light of the sun was still on the peaks. I heard the word then, and I give it to you now: Look up! Look up and know that no matter how great your trials, God is bigger; He is stronger; He will outlast them all, and so, child of the Mountain-God, will you.
There was another walk down that road when the sky was brown with dust. Even the mountains were hazy. But as I walked I saw clouds rolling in, and thunder sounded off in the distance; it began to rain, and as it did the dirt was washed down out of the sky, leaving streaks of clear blue behind it. Then again there was a word, and I wrote a song about it:
Dust billows from the world around
And gathers itself in my soul
I will lay this burden down
As You come, and make me whole
O Desert Soul, you’ve gathered
So much pain
Now hear the thunder sound as you
Call on His name!
And let the water fall down and down…
When I was very young I would sit in the crook of a wild cherry tree and listen to the birches around as they talked to each other. Of course I knew their conversations were all in my head; I was making them up. But the Earth and all its creatures do talk—if you listen you can hear them.
And what do they speak of?
As Spring follows Winter without fail, the voices of melting snow and sprouting leaf speak of resurrection.
As the birds believe that the earth will supply them with food; as the fields believe that rain will come; the songs of the birds and the scent of the wildflowers teach us trust.
As the butterfly that lives for a brilliant day and the tree that stands in silence for a thousand years, the quiet acceptance of life teaches us contentment with the time and the calling God has given.
The whole earth is a monument to the One who made it. So go outside. Take a deep breath—through your nose, so you can smell the summer air. Look around you. And listen. Always listen. The Earth is talking.
What does it have to say to you?