The Ultimate Love Letter

Yesterday, in the beauty of the sun, our family went on a walk out North Douglas to a secluded beach. From the beach, looking across Gastineau channel, you could see the snow covered Chilkat mountains spanning the horizon and the water crashing on the beach. Coming out of the trees to walk to the beach, a cold spring wind met us making the already brisk weather seem positively frigid. Though Jeff and I both commented on it to each other, the children were too caught up in the wonder of the place to even notice. They spent over an hour exploring the rocks, the logs, the icy tide pools and the thin lichen. They didn't want to leave when we finally told them it was time to go. 

There is something about the beauty of creation which teaches us fundamentally about the goodness and grandeur of God. We believe that just as God speaks to us through Tradition and Scripture, through prayer and spiritual reading, God also reveals Godself to us in creation: in the miracle of a baby being born, the fury of a winter storm, the fragile beauty of a rainbow.

The sun and wind reminded me of another day, 10 years ago, when I was home on Spring Break from college. The Jesuit institution I attended was leading me to expand my vision of God, people, and the world. I was being called out of the comfortable box I had created for myself to really grapple with the questions of faith and life. In the midst of it all I wondered, knowing what I knew about the world, could I still believe in God? Knowing what I knew about my own failings and sinfulness, could I believe in a God who loved me? The week of spring break was cold, clear and sunny and on one of the days I joined my parents for a cross-country ski on the frozen Glacier lake. Out on the ice, skiing over a perfect layer of snow, the sky was an impossible shade of blue stretching out forever and the sun made the snow sparkle and illuminated the icebergs frozen into the lake. And suddenly I heard it, God, speaking to my questioning and bruised heart: “THIS is how much I love you.”

Today I still hold that memory dear. The knowledge that the God who created the heavens and the earth, tells us through the very beauty of creation, “see, this is how much I love you.” No wonder my children wanted to set up camp and stay for ever on the frigid beach yesterday. In the smooth black rocks they found a place to climb, a lookout, a safe shelter. In the sun they knew the warmth of God's love and in the water and wind the expansiveness of life. Everything told them what they already know in their inner wisdom: All of this was created for us. Let us rejoice and glad.