by David Anderson
If you love it enough, anything will talk to you.-George Washington Carver The arborist had come with a crew of workers to lay a great ash to rest. While he was here, I asked him to cut out an old stump that was now in a space where a garden was taking shape. The stump […]
by David Anderson 9 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Awe, Beauty, Grace, Love, Nature/Creation, Seeing
After a run of hot days and nights, a cool spell descended. It was early morning, an almost chilly breeze in the air, and Pam and I decided to sit for meditation out on the deck. After the morning reading, we sat in silence—or so we thought. The surrounding trees seemed to teem with birds, […]
by David Anderson 12 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Awe, Beauty, Daily Practice, Grace, Listening, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Prayer/Meditation, Reality--trusting it
Vincent Donovan, a missionary in Africa, wrote of working with the Masai many years ago. He said the people were all sitting very respectfully listening to him as the priest, and he was teaching them about the Seven Sacraments of the Church. He described a sacrament as a physical encounter or event in which you […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Awe, Beauty, Discernment, Mystery, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Seeing
A few days ago I walked to the rim of the Grand Canyon and looked over the edge. I felt a twinge in my stomach and my mouth dropped slightly open. My first visit—I don’t know what I was expecting. I had seen countless pictures, but of course no flat image, measured in inches, could […]
by David Anderson 11 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Awe, Beauty, Grace, Nature/Creation, Seeing, Surrender, Transformation
May 16, 2023. I kneel beside a small hole in the earth. Today is our daughter Maggy’s fortieth birthday and we have given her, according to her wish, a weeping willow to mark the occasion. Since, in a fit of spring madness, I have just planted over forty trees and bushes around our home, I […]
by David Anderson 20 Comments Filed Under: Blessing, creation, Family, Grace, Gratitude, Nature/Creation
Spring, the most yearned-for season, is also the most crazy-making. If you have a back yard or a garden, a kind of obsession can take over. You go to a nursery and imagine this in that little empty corner of the front garden, and that in the bed beside the potting shed. You don’t have […]
by David Anderson 6 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, creation, Letting Go, Mystery, Nature/Creation, Reality--trusting it
There was an old saying, that people of faith should seek to understand their world with “the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.” For the last hundred years it’s been increasingly difficult to interpret the Bible, and now nobody trusts a newspaper. Maybe just as well. The idea that we could […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, authority, Awareness, Belief, Mystery, Nature/Creation, Reality--trusting it, Seeing
There was once a young boy who would wander in the woods. His father became concerned as he went deeper and deeper into the forest each time, so one day he said to the boy, “I notice that every day you walk into the woods. Why do you go there?” The boy replied, “I go […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Awareness, Daily Practice, Lent, Nature/Creation, Now/ the Present, Seeing, Silence, Transformation