"Asking the Animals" in Nome, Alaska
I flew from fish camp to Nome this week, to speak in a church, to discover new friends, and to wander the mountains and tundra of this spectacular place. I do not have many words today, just a question, a question I have asked a few blades of grass, sea-ice, animals and birds, even the lichen in this stunning land so very far from even my faraway island.
Come with me---ask with me, and see what they answer,
"But ask the animals and they will
teach you . .."
(Muskox)
(In their gorgeous qiviute skirts)
"The birds of the heavens, and they will tell you . . ."
" . . .Or the bushes and lichens of the tundra, and they will tell you . . .
(Or, listen to the beaches and rivers of the far North, and they will speak to you . . . )
(Bering Sea Ice at the village of Teller)
Who among all these does not know?
"Who among all these does not know?
In HIS hand is the life of every living
thing, and the
breath of all mankind . .. .
. .. the life of every creature, and the
breath of all mankind."
---Job 12
What shall we do then? What can we do but join all of creation, and join Gerard Manley Hopkins in praise?
"All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him."
(From "Pied Beauty")
