Garden of Eden

One Sunday years ago at Bethel Lutheran Church, a visiting pastor from northern Mexico offered a greeting to the congregation as we were partners in mission.  It was late September in Minnesota--our little corner of the world bursting with God's creative impulse of color and beauty.

Through a translator this pastor said, "You people live in the Garden of Eden."

Coming from an area of the world that is more brown than green, more dry than lush, the pastor believed that he had come to a place of immense beauty.

He was right.  It is easy for those of us who live in the beauty of the upper Midwest to take our environment for granted.  Not long ago I took a cup of coffee out onto the deck of a townhouse at Christmas Mountain Village near Wisconsin Dells.  The sun was rising into the morning sky.  The trees stood like vibrant green and brown soldiers. Leaves fluttered in the light wind.

We read in Isaiah 58:  "Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard."

May God grant you a dawn that lifts your spirit and assures you of his loving presence.  It is difficult to look at the beauty of creation and not see God's fingerprints everywhere.

Garden of Eden.  Yes.