From Forward Day by Day
Mark 16:15 Go into the whole world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.
The summer I really learned how to pray I was working for an industrial forestry company in the piney woods of East Texas. It was a challenging summer in a lot of ways, and I was living back under my (gracious) parents’ roof for the first time since I graduated from high school.
I walked through fields of seedlings and counted how many pine trees were among the weeds. I walked through forests to count and measure the mature trees. I walked along streambeds to mark trees that should be left to protect the waterways. I grumbled a lot about being there.
Then, something clicked. “I’m out in God’s good creation! I’ll turn my work into a prayer.” As I walked and counted, I began to proclaim good news: “This is God’s, this is God’s, this is God’s….” By the end of the summer, I found a kinship to those forests similar to what I’ve read in Saint Francis’s writing. And, the creation seemed to be proclaiming the good news right back to me. “Welcome. It’s about time you arrived.”
