All Creation Gives You Thanks and Praise

Just about every single morning there are some special words from one of our Eucharistic prayers at Mass that go running through my mind:

“Father, you are holy indeed, and all creation gives you thanks and praise.”

            Each morning I am blessed to be in the middle of God’s creation, and to see and hear that thanks and praise, and I am filled with awe and wonder.

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The first thing I do when I open my eyes each morning is to thank God for bringing me to another day. The second thing I do is to tell my wife Wanda how much I love her. And the third thing I do is to take my little beagle Katie out on the front lawn for her early morning walk.

Katie is five years old and only 13 pounds. She was a gift from God to us: a loving, gentle spirit. Katie is helping me to move away from my obsessive-compulsive, type A, workaholic habits, and to be more present to God and to his gifts of creation.

As I circle around the front lawn with Katie, I can hear the birds singing and the owls hooting. I can hear the woodpeckers busily at work. And for those few moments, I feel that I am in God’s presence; and I am overwhelmed with a sense of thankfulness and praise for his creation.

While the rest of my day may be tangled in email and work, while I spend all too many hours seeing life through the possessive eyes of my ego; those five minutes on the front lawn with Katie open my heart and my soul to God.

And I am filled with a sense of wonder for all God’s creation: for Katie herself; for the birds, for the trees; for oceans and sunsets and flowers; for the gift of life and for the unconditional love and forgiveness that can exist between and among human beings.

Life is a gift but it isn’t easy. There is joy, but also times of pain and suffering. We all cope with stress, uncertainty and anxiety. But God is always walking beside us; holding our hand, telling us that in the end it will all be okay.

He sends us this message in the simple gifts of his creation: in the birds, in the owls; in the love we share with others; and even in the loving eyes of a little beagle.

          “Father, you are holy indeed, and all creation gives you thanks and praise.”