Early on a spring day, the trees full of leaves, their canopies of green dripping and bowed low along the Jordan River Trail after a pre-dawn rain, a light breeze kisses Cottonwood, Oak and Aspen with whispers of the divine.
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| "In Him we live and move and have our being . . . ." (Acts 17:28) |
The dogs are quiet, too, uncommon slack in their leashes, as if also aware of something special in the air. And so, we commune, we three creatures of the Creator.
Surrounded, caressed, embraced, and filled with life. I have entered a moment where time and space blink, as if awaiting a reset.
We are, in this moment, sacramental.
The limbs of trees sway. My thoughts fill with images from this past Sunday's Liturgy, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian Great Entrance. Our priests, deacons and altar boys moved through rows of bowed heads, the cross, the bread, and the wine both their guide and blessed burden.
Intercessory prayers were said for all, as the procession wound back toward the altar. Parishioners gently touched the priestly robes, in reverence and veneration not for the man, but by proxy of Christ the God-Man.
Along the river, we creatures, two- and four-legged, proceed slowly as a sea of green seemingly parts before us. Leaves, moved by a gust, brush my face.
Ours is no Great Entrance, but is it a communion? At least, for me, it is an "iconic" experience, this walking through a window on a distantly reflected paradise.
I remove the black woolen chotki from my wrist, and pray, thumb and finger moving the knots in silence.
Loved ones, departed, and living; both friends, and those who counted me a foe in years passed; my own, flawed, and stained soul, all receive entreaties for the mercy of heaven, here and in the life to come.
So, we walk, melting into grace.
