"By and large, our world has lost its sense of wonder. We have grown up. We no longer catch our breath at the sight of a rainbow or the scent of a rose, as we once did. We have grown bigger and everything else smaller, less impressive. We get blase and worldly wise and sophisticated. We no longer run our fingers through water, no longer shout at the starts or make faces at the moon. Water is H2O, the stars have been classified, and the moon is not made of green cheese...
Our world is saturated with grace, and the lurking presence of God is revealed not only in spirit but in matter--in a deer leaping across a meadow, in the flight of an eagle, in fire and water, in a rainbow after a summer storm, in a gentle doe streaking through a forest, in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, in a child licking a chocolate ice cream cone, ina woman with windblown hair. God intended for us to discover His loving presence in the world around us...
So often we religious people walk amid the beauty and bounty of nature and we talk nonstop. We miss the panorama of color and sound and smell. We might as well have remained inside in our closed, articially lit living rooms. Nature's lessons are lost and the opportunity to be wrapped in silent wonder before the God of creation passes. We fail to be stretched by the magnificience of the world saturated wtih grace."
--Ragamuffin Gospel