[Last night—June 29, 2007—I led the meditation at the healing service at Good shepherd Church in Hayesville, NC where I am engaged in healing ministry. I began the Soaking Prayer Service by reading from Daniel 3 adapted to reflect glaciers and Alaskan wildlife.}
Quaker Thomas R. Kelly wrote:
Do we live in the steady peace of God, a peace down at the very depths of our souls. . . ? It is a life that is freed from strain and anxiety and hurry, for something of the Cosmic Presence of God becomes ours.
This is the Cosmic Presence the three men in Daniel sing about amid the fires of travail. It is the Cosmic Presence which sustains us.
I do not know about you but when I read that God rested on the seventh day, I tend to think of creation as a one-time event. But that is not the case. All life and the universe flared forth from the Creator some 14 billion years ago. And it is still flaring forth.
As I stood on the ice of the Meade Glacier near Skagway, Alaska, I stopped and looked. It was a graced moment. I was filled with a sense of wonder and awe. This was not an inert, dead piece of ice. It was a living thing ever changing. Walking about the glacier we found water roaring down and creating deep crevasses. The water rumbled. Maybe that is the way justice roars down. Creation is groaning to its fulfillment. The glacier itself, filled with ice worms, expands and contracts, freezes and melts. It has carved deep gorges as it dislodged huge boulders which now lay on its surface. I was filled with a sense of the power and the Cosmic Presence of God.
Glaciers, magnificent snow-capped mountains, a grizzly with her two cubs, a wolf, moose, elk, caribou, golden and bald eagles soaring and Denali—Mt. McKinley—rising 20,320 feet into a cloud laced blue sky—these all immersed me in the power and presence of God.
Denali--Mount McKinley 20,320 feet Click for bigger picture of Great One c. J. P. Mahon, 2010
I did not seemed to need to follow my usual daily practice of scripture reading and reflection. I was immersed in God’s primary revelation—creation.
Since I have returned I am seeing life differently. I delight in walking in the power and presence of God daily. I am living in the steady peace of God. Peripheral things seem to matter less.
Peace—shalom, salaam—health, well-being. Wholeness is ours because the Creator is still alive and at work. As Thomas Kelly says, “this is an abiding, enduring peace which never fails.” God is making all things new. God is healing us and making us whole. God is gifting us with peace, with shalom. God is wiping away every tear.
In the words of Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
