LOVE HAS VOICES

This past summer, with visiting family, we took a short drive from where we live to the Calaveras Big Trees State Park. This is a beautiful park of protected groves of various conifer and giant Sequoia Redwoods. As we walked through this wonderland we saw a Redwood stump 26 feet in diameter (no, really) and huge trees reaching to the sky, it seems one almost feels the need for quiet and to whisper in this environment.

One person responsible for helping preserve these beautiful forests was John Muir (1838-1914) who was an active conservationist, reseacher and botanist. He was the driving force to help preserve Yosemite National Park and Sequoia National Park as well.

John Muir wrote: “We seem to imagine that since Herod beheaded John the Baptist, there is no longer any voice crying in the wilderness. But no one in the wilderness can possibly make such a mistake, for every one of these flowers is such a voice. No wilderness in the world is so desolate as to be without divine ministers. God’s love covers all the earth as the sky covers it, and also fills it in every pore. And this love has voices heard by all who have ears to hear.”

Thank you John Muir.

“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? Now those who are splendidly clothed and live luxuriously are in royal palaces. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and much more than a prophet.” Jesus