From this morning’s CAC reflection.

“Have you ever had an encounter like this in nature? Perhaps for you, it occurred at a lake or by the seashore, hiking in the mountains, in a garden listening to a mourning dove, even at a busy street corner. I am convinced that when received, such innate theology grows us, expands us, and enlightens us almost effortlessly. All other God talk seems artificial and heady in comparison. “

But, of course, in the reflection this is grounded in the twisted and uniquely beatutiful trunk of a great cottonwood in the back yard…a trunk that appears to have grown without rhyme or reason, following a path to the sun that we find difficult to understand, but which satisfies our sense of beauty…of rightness…or wholeness in a way the straight trunk of a pine often does not (but always should).

Somehow God reveals himself, to those with open eyes and hearts, in nature especially in the odd, the unique, the inexplicably beautiful, the unlikely thrust of life against the odds…the unreasoned patterns in bed rock, the unruly piles of clouds.

As a nature photographer I go out looking. I want to be “expanded and enlightened effortlessly”. That is what I am doing out there.

So here it is…the unlikely beauty of the common skunk cabbage, attesting to the unlikely reality of God’s love and care, God’s craftsmanship, in the smallest and most humble of places.

One of the things I always hope for when I am out with my camera is an experience of the other. Especially in wildlife, from chipmunks to wolves to bison, and bears and elk and pika I am never more aware of the other than when eye to eye with some wild thing. And I never feel that they are in my world. I am always aware of being in their world, at least for that moment, and it is totally alien to me…totally other. I am aware that behind those eyes there is world that I will never see and never know. A world in which I am just a creature…hopefully neither food nor threat…just something different in the day. And yet it is God that looks back at me in those eyes. I see the creator in all creation…the abundance and variety of ways of being that I will never know…and I am in awe. Our natural response to the other is either fear or worship. I just confident enough of the overwhelming love of God to lean always toward worship, even when a wolf walks up on me and pops over the ridge 25 feet way. That experience of the worshipful other, the awe-full other is just a taste of the experience we encounter in God. Seeing the other in nature, I believe, conditions our hearts, our eyes, to be able to see the otherness of God, and not to fear…to lean always toward worship. But then, maybe it is the other way around. However it works, I look forward to every encounter with the other.

Richard Rohr and The Center for Action and Contemplation’s daily meditations this week are centered on seeing nature with new eyes. Nature photography is, after prayer and music, my primary form of worship. I spend a lot of time outdoors with my camera, and each time I go out I expect to be surprised by some unmistakable evidence of the presence of God. Photography is all about catching the way light works with color and texture and form to convey some truth that resonates with our souls. Nature photography in particular, for me, is all about catching the hand of the artist at work…whether it is in a flower, or a bird, or a chipmunk, a flowing stream or piled clouds…always in some encounter with wonder…some encounter that makes me smile…that delights me…that makes me feel blessed and part of the living moment of creation…this particular living moment. So I am going to share a few photos this week, with the intention of exploring how I see nature, how I see God in nature, and sharing my delight. This photo is of Trout Lily…sometimes known as Adder’s Tongue, Fawn Lily, Yellow Dog-tooth Violet, etc. They are among the first flowers of spring, following the Maple Flowers high in the trees, appearing as brown mottled leaves (like a brook trout in rippling water), poking up through the leaf litter, shaped and paired like the tips of a snake’s tongue (Adder’s Tongue). Within a few warm days, generally less than a week, the blossoms develop and open…yellow reverse curved petals with clustered yellow or bright orange stamens loaded with pollen. And then they are gone. Only a few of the plants flower each year, so mostly you find beds of the leaves…but even they are quickly overgrown. I go looking for them every spring. There are two flowers in this photo. The one in front dominates but the one in back doubles the effect. And in seeing that, in getting the camera down low on my little tripod, in framing it in the flipped out screen of the camera…checking focus…making sure the camera is set to capture what I see…the light and color and form and texture…in the act of photographing the flowers, I am, somehow, participating in God’s creation…even more in sharing what I saw. I am thinking: “God did this. What an awesome God! What a privilege to be right here, right now, and to see this…to have the eyes to see the beauty and the mind and hands to catch it…and the ability to share it. What an awesome God!” Yes, all that in the simple Trout Lily in the forest of spring.