Last week on my Face Book Author page I posted a thought:

“Nature. Cheaper than Therapy!”

Judging by the number of comments and positive responses to this post I see that many of us use “nature” as a healthy way to keep in touch with ourselves, our therapy. We seek solace in solitude and nature for our inner guidance.

But why and how does nature work as well as spending time and money on professional advice from the “outside”?

The early Franciscan concept offers an insight. They proclaimed that the first Bible was not the written Bible but creation, “nature”, itself. Nature is our lifeline to God. Creation mirrors and reflects the Divine part of ourselves that we are constantly trying to connect with.

Somehow we find the Sacred Shared Presence of God “out there”. We resonate with the Sacred Shared Presence…the power and darkness of anxiety in the storms, the peace of the lake waters, the restlessness in the wind, the joy in the clouds, the happiness of the colorful flowers. We listen to it all, stirring up the God within providing us a haven, maybe even answers to our questions.

Nature offers us a peace, an exhale, a coming home. We have to be still to observe, and melt into it without trying to rearrange it. A time spent in nature brings us to a place of acceptance. Even without understanding this whole messy world, we can learn the lesson from nature that somehow, things will work out.

God reinforces this in the written Bible, Matthew 6, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”

When we are truly present to nature we prove what Mother Teresa had on her business card, “In the silence of the heart God speaks.”

God is speaking to us, and it’s up to us to listen and RSVP to His everyday invitations.