2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he
looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3 Then Moses said, ‘I must
turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned
up.’ 4 When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of
the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ 5 Then he said, ‘Come no closer!
Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy
ground.’
Exodus 3:2-5
After we had moved into British Summer Time and the clocks had gone forward by
an hour, one morning as I took Mack out for his early morning walk, I was struck by
the noise of the birdsong from deep within a bush at the lane leading to Suds Pond.
We were all alone and I was struck by the glory of God’s creation. A moment of
quiet peace and grace at the dawning of a new day. When I returned to the Manse,
one of my daily readings was the one above, and I thought again of the privilege
and pleasure I had just had in hearing a dawn chorus. Then I remembered these
lines penned by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
Earth is crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God,
but only he who sees
takes off his shoes.
In the press of a day’s challenges and duties it is easy to get caught up in a ‘to do
list’ and miss the extraordinary in the ordinary. That particular morning, I was due
to chair a contentious meeting and I carried that ‘holy moment’ with me in the hope
that I would be able to frame what would be difficult conversations in a better light.
But then I turned my Bible to my next reading for the day from Colossians. And once
more the ordinary took on an extraordinary twist:
12 As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion,
kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone
has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord[a] has
forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love,
which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ
rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be
thankful. Colossians 3:12-15
The morning meeting went better than I expected, indeed better than many of us
would have dared to have hoped. And I began to wonder if there were connections
between a dawn walk, the glory of God’s creation, quiet peace and grace found in
the pages of Scripture, and prayers spoken in hushed reverential and almost silent
tones, for
Earth is crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God,
but only he who sees
takes off his shoes.