the heavens declare

The evening light wanes early now, summer pink fading to September grays and blues in pillows of dispersing raincloud. The silver half-moon is visible for an instant before being swallowed back up by the mist. The heavens declare.

On a clearer night, I would stay out longer in search of a sky striped with shooting stars or dancing with pillars of aurora—though it’s getting too late in the season for such an already-unlikely event. Still, God’s artistry is unbound by what is “likely.”

The heavens declare.

When I was a little girl roaming wide-open spaces under a cloudless wind-whipped sky, I looked often to the face of the mountain in the northwest corner of the horizon, thinking I might see the face of God there. That was the biggest object I had categories for, so in my mind, that was God’s domain, the closest visual I had to God Himself.

But have you noticed? In the Bible, God is not the mountain. God is on the mountain—in the cloud.

God is not an ancient face of rock, half-buried in glaciers, concrete and definable, conquerable by anyone with the will and stamina to try. And He’s not a momentary formation of cloud, shifting and changeable, enterable by anyone who can climb or fly high enough.

He is neither… and both.

Ancient, real, challenging, multifaceted, mysterious, pervasive, impossible to capture.

The heavens declare.

Heaven is declaring God’s glory;
    the sky is proclaiming his handiwork.
One day gushes the news to the next,
    and one night informs another what needs to be known.
Of course, there’s no speech, no words—
        their voices can’t be heard—
but their sound extends throughout the world;
        their words reach the ends of the earth.

Psalm 19:1-4 CEB

“Glory” is a strange word in Hebrew. Its source word, transliterated kabad, is a verb best defined as “to be heavy, weighty, burdensome.” Kabod is the noun version we translate “glory.”

The heavens declare God’s weightiness. His abundance. That He is not to be trifled with. Like the mountain, He is massive and immovable. Like the clouds in the expanse, He is mysterious and unpredictable. His own Creation reflects tiny pieces of who He is and what it means to enter into His presence. It is a heavy thing.

A heavy, wonderful thing.

And the Creation can’t help itself but invite us into the Creator’s throne room.

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

1 Kings 19:11-13 NIV

Genesis 1:2-5 (a meditation)

Now the earth was formless and void, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” There was an evening, and there was a morning: one day.

- Genesis 1:2-5

SUGGESTED READINGS: Psalm 104, Isaiah 60:1-3, Mark 4:35-41, 2 Corinthians 4:1-6

“Let there be light.”

Let the voice of God, His Holy Breath, command darkness and chaos to retreat to their proper places. The uncreation state is not empty nothingness into which matter must be injected; it is a chaotic wasteland, from which order and abundance must be made. The chaos-taming, desert-farming, order-making God is the same One present with the disciples thousands of years into the earth’s future, sleeping serenely in the midst of the storm until they wake Him—and the תהו ובהו, the tohu va vohu, the formless void remembers His voice.

“Peace, be still.”

There is light before there are stars to produce it. There are days before there is a sun to dictate them. There is quietude before the storm should reasonably have been able to pass, because this world is under the authority of the King whose throne is on high, who “wraps Himself in light as with a garment”—not its own star-paths or weather patterns.

Elohim—the God-without-origin from Genesis 1:1—is also a God without fear. Chaos is no threat to Him. Darkness is no threat to Him. The best of Creation’s terrors and the worst of Uncreation’s desolation are just a breath away from being silenced and undone by His word; how much less can the evil deeds of a few rebellious men scare Him? How much less can the Enemy hope to prevail against Him?

Fearlessly He commands the darkness. Fearlessly He guides His people through the wilderness. Fearlessly He sleeps in the storm. Fearlessly He submits to His own execution.

He merely looks on the earth, and it trembles.

And it is good.

world of war

Rinsing a dish
in the sink
where the sunlight streams in

How does the world still turn?


My baby says “Mama”
and I smile
and cry
to think of the mamas whose babies will die

For no good reason, only they
got caught in the crossfire between power plays


Strawberry juice down my three-year-old’s chin
and ribbons of shadow
because the sun shines

Why here?
Why do we
get to live untouched and wild and free

When a world away and yet in our backyard
families hide
or are taken
torn apart


And what should I do, besides rinse a dish
and wipe a face
and smile
and cry

Because of the babies whose mamas will die