If you go out on a clear, bright morning,
there can be a sense of peaceful expectation in the air,
as if all living things are saying,
'Here is the gift of a new day,
fresh, unspoilt, full of potential,
vulnerable in your hands
yet freely entrusted to you.
Can you see the glory and hear the stillness?'
During this period of the coronavirus pandemic,
many of us who have been fortunate enough to go outside
have experienced a deep, quiet beauty in the natural world,
with more birdsong and less pollution,
sharper colours of flowers and trees
and a sense, in some ways at least, of the earth healing.
Now, more than ever,
and into the future,
we need to cherish God's creation.
Lord, I praise you
for the miracle of life itself.
May I never take for granted
the fragile splendour of your world.
Help me to listen
to the songs and silences of creation.
With you every moment is a new beginning.
Come into my soul
like the quiet sunrise.
I wait
and I trust . . .