It's a beautiful day. Blue skies. No wind. Slight bite of winter still in the air. It is a day when it is easy to praise God as you go for a morning walk in the park. It even makes a journey to work a little less depressing. But it brought to mind a passage in Eugene Peterson's "The Contemplative Pastor." (Yes, I'm back there again.) It is probably my least favourite part of the book, where he does a miniature hagiography of Annie Dillard , the American author who has written much on the spirituality revealed in nature and the problem of pain. But in this section Peterson, drawing on Dillard's writings, says: 'It is child's play to "appreciate nature" when the sun is shining and the birds are singing. Something far more strenuous is involved when we face and deal with the cruelty and terror that creation also deals out in spades.' Previously he makes reference to the 10% of living creatures that are parasites, which Dillard
Dialogues, monologues, sketches, poems, rants, theological and liturgical bits and bobs and miscellaneous other verbal doodles...