Loving God,
As you know, some of us have been on holidays.
It was strange this time.
When I’m at work I’m so aware of your presence.
In the hospital as I enter each room as a chaplain I know you’re there
with me.
When I don’t know what to say I silently call out to you.
I talk to you as I walk the corridors and ask you where to go next.
But on holidays – relaxing in Echuca and Canberra and Nerrandera - it wasn’t so clear.
Where can you be found when I’m not living on the edge?
But soon I found you.
I must say I was a little surprised to find you at Parliament House.
I saw you in the diversity of the people visiting
And the way that, even if we don’t always do it well
This country was set up to be fair and just, to treat all people
equally, to give everyone a voice. Sounds like you must have had something to
do with that.
I noticed your work at the War Memorial too.
Parts of it were dark and scary and showed us at our very worst.
But then there were the clear signs that you had been at work in the
dark -
People who put other people’s lives before their own and did courageous
things
People who worked long hours to care for others when they themselves
were sick and hungry and exhausted
The sounds of the changi choir wafting above the sadness, uniting
people, pointing to something bigger, bringing hope.
And then, those last few days when we were camped by the billabong and
it seemed like no one else was there with us, we could see your handiwork.
We knew you in the golden yellow light of dusk, as we watched the azure
kingfishers flying to and fro.
We sat for a long time by the fire and watched in wonder as this
enormous earth we were sitting on passed between the moon and the sun and the
moon turned red. How small we felt. What an enormous universe we are a part of.
How great you are.
And then in the morning we revelled in the brilliant golden white light
of dawn and the way it made the most mundane things look brilliant and fresh
and new and full of possibility.
That sounds like something you would enjoy doing.
Even the songs of the birds sounded more beautiful in that light.
God, present in all places, in all times
God of wonders,
God of light,
We praise you.
Amen
