Login / Signup

Free Access

Finding Holy Spirit in Nature

Illustration
Stories
May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
    may the Lord rejoice in his works—
 who looks on the earth and it trembles,
    who touches the mountains and they smoke.
 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praise to my God while I have being
. (vv. 31-33)

When I am feeling low, I go outside and walk in the forest behind our home. The fresh air and the energy from the trees flows directly into my soul. Nothing restores my sense of wellbeing more than a few hours of sunshine and blue sky, something I learned tromping the woods and doing fieldwork on the farm when I was a boy.

If I could return to that boyhood farm for just one hour, it would be to follow our 35 Holsteins over the hog’s back hill one last time, past the majestic white pines on the sandstone bluff, and down home to the barn.

Angie Weiland Crosby wrote, “Nature is the purest portal to inner-peace.”

The great American conservationist, John Muir wrote, “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of autumn.”

Muir, who came to Wisconsin from Scotland in 1849 as an eleven-year-old lad, brought with him the Celtic way of knowing he had learned from his maternal grandfather. For Muir this inner knowing began in the great cathedrals of the natural world. “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks. The sun shines not on us but in us… Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”

John Philip Newell, former Warden of Iona Abbey in the western isles of Scotland, writes in his book, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul, how Muir saw “sacredness shining at the heart of all things.” After a several-week bout of blindness from an industrial accident in his early twenties, Muir “…began to experience a new inner way of seeing,” what a friend called “seeing with the eye within the eye, or what in Celtic wisdom over the centuries had been called seeing with the eye of the heart.” 

Muir wanted to see everything there was to see. “The world’s big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.” Muir said, “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul…I am in the woods, woods, woods, and they are in me-ee—ee. The king tree (sequoia) and I have sworn eternal love.”

Newell tells of a stormy day when Muir “tied himself to the top of a one-hundred-foot Douglas Fir tree, so that he could sway with the wind and hear all around him trees being uprooted by the storm and crashing to the ground.” He adds, “For Muir, opening to the sacred was about opening to the elemental.”

My Roman Catholic friend, Deacon Eddie Ensley, who is the author of many spiritual books about the presence of God, tells how his Cherokee grandfather taught him to look for this “presence of being” in nature.

I have a vivid memory of my grandfather standing motionless on the top of the bluff, letting his eyes soak in all that came to him. Once I asked him what he saw when he looked. I still hear his answer, rhythmic with Cherokee and Appalachian intonations: ‘I see the dirt, the trees, the water, the skies.’ ‘Why?’ I asked him. ‘Why do you look so long?’ He paused, took his pipe out of his mouth, swallowed, then slowly said, ‘If you look a long time, it will all shimmer, and you will see the glory.’

Every living creature, and every tree and bush in creation, is surrounded by energy fields. I saw the shimmer and beheld the glory often in the fields and forests on the farm where I grew up in southwest Wisconsin. I heard it singing in the ripples as the creek rolled over the rocks under the bridge below the barn, in the croaking of frogs, the trill of the redwing blackbirds in spring, in the howling of coyotes, and the shrill cry of the eagle diving for its prey.

I still see it and feel it when I walk the woods these days as I begin my 74th year on this Earth. The energy is thick, palpable; it fills me, body and soul.
UPCOMING WEEKS
In addition to the lectionary resources there are thousands of non-lectionary, scripture based resources...
Proper 10 | OT 15 | Pentecost 5
30 – Sermons
160+ – Illustrations / Stories
30 – Children's Sermons / Resources
29 – Worship Resources
34 – Commentary / Exegesis
4 – Pastor's Devotions
and more...
Proper 11 | OT 16 | Pentecost 6
29 – Sermons
160+ – Illustrations / Stories
27 – Children's Sermons / Resources
20 – Worship Resources
29 – Commentary / Exegesis
4 – Pastor's Devotions
and more...
Proper 12 | OT 17 | Pentecost 7
34 – Sermons
160+ – Illustrations / Stories
32 – Children's Sermons / Resources
26 – Worship Resources
31 – Commentary / Exegesis
4 – Pastor's Devotions
and more...
Plus thousands of non-lectionary, scripture based resources...

New & Featured This Week

CSSPlus

John Jamison
Object: You may present this message as a simple story, or have the children act it out as a role-play. I will show the role-play version, but you can ignore the acting pieces and just tell the story if you prefer.

Note: For the role-play version, you will need to select two girls and one boy to play the roles. You might also have a broom and a dust rag if you want to.

* * *

Hello, everyone! (Let them respond.) Are you ready for our story today? (Let them respond.) Great! Let’s get started.

The Immediate Word

Mary Austin
Dean Feldmeyer
Christopher Keating
Thomas Willadsen
George Reed
Katy Stenta
For July 20, 2025:

Emphasis Preaching Journal

Mark Ellingsen
Bill Thomas
Frank Ramirez
Bonnie Bates
Amos 8:1-12, Psalm 52
Amos proclaims the word from God that punishes the people. The people are to be punished for their lack of faith, for their focus on practicing deceit, betraying honesty to their neighbors, and being impatient for the time after the Sabbath when they can focus on profit and selling their crops and wares. Oh, my! What a terrible message for people. You have been unfaithful so I will punish you. And then in the psalm, God is proclaimed to be the olive tree, that which brings blessing.
David Kalas
I have tried to find different ways of saying it so that my children don’t tire of hearing it. But the basic principle remains the same, and my kids have heard it a ton. “First things first.” They ask if they can do this or they start to do that, and I will endeavor to redirect them, saying, “Why don’t we make sure we’re doing first things first!”

StoryShare

John E. Sumwalt
I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church. (v. 24)

The Village Shepherd

Janice B. Scott
One of Martha's earliest memories was of her little sister Mary singing and dancing in the middle of an admiring crowd of friends. Mary had always been a dancer, from the time she could walk. Privately, Martha thought she'd always been something of a show-off and ought to go on the stage, for Mary loved an audience.

SermonStudio

John E. Sumwalt
Jeanne Jones
Several years ago, before we moved to Wisconsin, I was an honorary nanny for our pastor's son, Jonathan. I took care of him from the time he was able to walk until our pastor moved, when Jonathan was about five. We had wonderful times together. One time, when I was at their house, and we had been doing some spiritual direction together, Pastor Michael asked me if I knew the name of my guardian angel.
James Evans
We are not surprised when we learn about crooks and robbers boasting about "mischief done against the godly" or "plotting destruction" all day long. The image we have in our minds about who "bad" people are, and how they conduct themselves, make such accusations completely plausible. We are less inclined to believe such things about leaders, especially respected leaders among us. We have difficulty believing someone with wealth and power would deliberately plot to do someone else harm.
Arley K. Fadness
Today's gospel from Luke 10 follows the parable of the good Samaritan. Luke positions the good Samaritan and the Mary-Martha story back to back for good reason. The parable and the story are examples of the Great Commandment "to love the Lord your God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself." The good Samaritan parable illustrates "love to neighbor," whereas the Mary-Martha story illustrates "love to God."
Kirk R. Webster
In the early 1990s, Wesley Nunley of Dallas completed a project he had dreamed of for decades. "I tell you, this could be a big thing," he explained. Wes then walked out to a concrete octagon in the middle of his backyard. With a beaming smile, arms raised up in excitement, the energetic retiree said, "This welcomes the UFO to land, which has never been done before."
John W. Wurster
It was the best of times. A time of prosperity and confidence, a time of relative peace, a time when most everything looked pretty good, a time when most everyone felt pretty good. It was a time maybe not unlike our own time.
H. Burnham Kirkland
Words Of Assurance
Our God is both wise and caring: afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted.

Pastoral Prayer
God, we bow before you this morning, knowing that you hear every prayer. We know that in all of Creation, you are the source of life. You are the one who set the light swirling between the galaxies. The breath of your Spirit pulses through all life. You have even become flesh among us. We praise you, Lord, that in all your wonder, you have not forgotten us.

Special Occasion

Wildcard SSL