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Praying with nature

Walking through the dramatic colours and smells of fall, with dry crispy leaves underfoot and sailing through the air, always stirs my heart and lifts my spirit. I am called out of myself to simply be at one with creation. I am called to prayer. Like Gerald Manley Hopkins in his poem God’s Grandeur I am mercifully taken away from the often excessive weariness of the evening news:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

I am called to prayer because the world is charged with God’s grandeur. If prayer frees us to be our deepest selves with the One whose creating and restoring love compassionately accompanies us in all times and places, then praying with nature not only frees us to know ourselves and God more deeply, it helps us grow closer to nature itself

Following is a meditation from the Ignatian tradition using nature as a window into the divine presence:

The Prayer

1. Take 30 minutes or more, as you like, to go outside (or sit beside a window) and find a relatively quiet place where you will not be interrupted.


2. Dedicate this time to being with God, in whatever way feels comfortable to you. Ask the Spirit to guide your remembering through your imagination.


3. In your imagination, allow a memory to surface of an early experience you had in nature when you had a deep connection with nature.


4. Return there as fully as you can in your memory. Recall the details of the place: the things you touched, smelled, heard, saw, and perhaps tasted. After reconstructing the experience in your memory, walk around it, so to speak. Who was there? Where was it? What time of day or night? What did your body feel? Take your time remembering these details. Write them down along with whatever else you notice about this experience. Linger with your memory, letting it soak in.


5. Finish your time in nature by simply noticing how you feel in that moment. If any gratitude arises, you can express it to God in whatever way feels most natural. If not, just notice that, too. You may also want to express something to the part of nature with which you have spent this time.


My hope is that this Prayer in Nature will shape how you see nature in the future. This experience you recalled today has been living in you, just waiting for you to attend to it. Hopefully, you will find yourself setting aside time again soon to experience yourself, God, and nature making new memories together.