We were like children, watching a spectacular sunrise in a sky that couldn’t make up its mind on what to wear that day.
Orange? Ok.
Yellow? Yes.
Dark black silhouette on the mountains? Yes.
But changes came within seconds of the previous choice. iPhones were at the ready as we clicked, snapped, shot, and celebrated one of the grand mornings given to us by the Creator.
We paused long enough to sip another cup of coffee when the sky exploded again with indecision:
Gold? Yes, please.
Deep, deep blue sky? By all means.
We stayed on our feet, cameras still at the ready, as we let our coffee grow cold. No one cared; the sky was a drama of God’s glory written in bold letters, giving each of us joy.
John Calvin spoke of the world as the “living likeness of God…The contemplation of heaven and earth,” he wrote, “is the very school of God’s children.”1
Calvin is thought of by some as stern, strident, even cranky. That’s hard to reconcile with a sentence like, “He had been placed here, as in a spacious theater, to behold the works of God, and there is no work of God so small that we ought to pass it by lightly, but all ought to be carefully and diligently observed.”2
You most likely read this blog to find a word of inspiration or a thought for the week to ponder. Today, I let Calvin be the first to invite you to a spiritual exercise that requires no equipment, schedule, skill, or planning: “… As soon as the name of God sounds in her ears, or the thought of him occurs to our minds, let the world become our school if we desire rightly to know God.”3
Just in case you need a fortified invitation, it will come from Mary Oliver:
“…I beg of you,
do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.”4
And, finally, our best biblical poet, David, prepares his readers for worship on God’s holy hill. How did he prepare them? He began by declaring, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” (Psalm 24:1) An invitation, perhaps, to pay attention to the world we live in.
Some days, children will see more than those of us at the “adults’ table.”
Practice: Let’s be childlike and go to school on the way to worship, or on the way to a time we’re supposed to be learning. “It could mean something. It could mean everything.”
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Keith Anderson, D.Min., is a Faculty Associate for Spirituality and Vocation at VantagePoint3 and President Emeritus of Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. He is the author of several books, including his most recent: On Holy Ground: Your Story of Identity, Belonging and Sacred Purpose (Wipf & Stock, 2024). His other works include Reading Your Life’s Story (IVP, 2016), A Spirituality of Listening (IVP, 2016), and Spiritual Mentoring (IVP, 1999). In his writing, teaching, and mentoring, Keith seeks to set a table for people looking to enter the “amazing inner sanctuary of the soul” in the most ordinary and extraordinary moments of life.
1 John Calvin in Belden C. Lane, Ravished by Beauty, p. 59.
2 John Calvin in Belden C. Lane, Ravished by Beauty, p. 21
3 John Calvin in Belden C. Lane, Ravished by Beauty, p. 21
4 Mary Oliver, “Invitation” in The Red Bird