HOW GREAT THOU ART

For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

Psalm 86: 10 - 13 (ESV)

I found God once

In the shade of a magnolia tree,

Where summer’s carefreeness and the flower’s endurance

Divulged secrets of greatness.

A quiet liberation.

I met God again

Mid-winter,

When the white that cloaked my world

Shifted

From suffocating storm

To endless purity

Falling and filling wherever there was open space.

A soft whisper.

I saw God in a roving machine on Mars,

In science and mechanics and

Minds I do not understand.

The joy of exploration

Carried on currents

Of perseverance.

A searching, a finding.

I think I heard God once in a flock of geese.

A quirky chorus, out of tune, but

“Let the creatures sing what they wish!”

I agree.

A freedom, an autonomy.

I think I see God

Mostly in Jesus.

The lowliness draws my attention.

The kindness, the weeping, the feasting,

The breaking of traditions.

The befriending, the tending, the walking.

Then there’s the dying

The bleeding

The lack of retaliating.

A slow letting go

Of the body, the spirit.

The greatness nobody expected.

The hero nobody wanted.

The only one there will ever be.

Jessica Cotten