Five minutes on Saturday morning sitting at the side of Loch Lomond looking at this. What fascinated me was the blueness. Our weather is often grey-coloured, much of the light muted or filtered, making everything seem opaque. That too can be beautiful, dripping with life, what George macleod would call the seeping drizzle of God's gentle grace.
But on a morning like this, you need a blue colour chart to trace the diversity of tones and shades of blue, from denim and sapphire, azure and steel, to Yale and tufts. No, I don't know all these colours by sight; I didn't even know there are 60 indicative categories of blue. But sitting on a large cold rock, with hat, jacket and gloves, just looking, I was aware of the changing of light and colour, sunlight and cloud, calm and ripple; it was like a watercolour being worked in some sky-artist's studio.
One of the thin books I read years ago was The Unattended Moment, by Michael Paffard. It gathered together the experiences of people who had encountered in the world around them, a sense of a presence other than themselves. As a Christian I have no problem with the reality of God's presence in and through the world; nor have I any hesitation in recognising the activity of the Creator who sustains and works in the rhythms and changes of loch and landscape, mountain and forest, - and in the hearts of human beings who attend to such moments of God saying hello.
At such moments, as T S Eliot remarked, we are in a place where prayer is valid.
Thank you for this - both the beautiful picture, and the quote from Eliot that sent me back (again) to that searing poem.
Posted by: David Bowler | November 27, 2013 at 01:11 PM