Wow. Breathtaking!

Reflect on the wonder of the cosmos, and of our planet Earth with all its inhabitants, and compose your own psalm of praise and thanks to God for the gift of creation.

O LORD, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth!
Your majesty is infinite, expanding forever like the universe!
When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and stars that you set in place;
clusters of galaxies, stars and gas;
planets and cabbages* and kings†;
dark energy, quantum vacuum, black holes,
parallel light rays, Euclidian geometry,
solar eclipses, light speed, the Milky Way,
supernovas and shooting stars,
particles blinking into and out of existence--
What are humans that you are mindful of them,
mere mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them little less than a god,
crowned them with glory and honour.
You have given them rule over the works of your hands;
put all things at their feet:
all sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, the fish of the sea
and whatever swims the paths of the seas.

When I go up Mount Kilimanjaro, you are there,
where your presence is as wide as the whole world,
great, high and unbelievably white in the sun,
where Hemingway’s snowy prose echoes your name;

When I set off to Canada’s Hudson Bay, you are there,
where the polar bears gather in hungry vigil,
waiting for the November water to freeze;
And you are there, too,
in the breathtaking beauty of multicolour lights,
spinning the aurora borealis into vision.

When I swim the Great Barrier Reef, you are there,
amidst dreamy green turtles, force 5 cyclones,
rising sea levels and colourful photosynthetic zooxanthellae-rich coral.
I cannot escape you
in the joyously reverberating harmonics
of didgeridoos dancing across the crown of Uluru in the vibrant red Outback;
nor can I hide from you in the mists of the Ugandan Virunga Mountains
where serene silverbacks play silly boys‡ in the highland forests.

What about Victoria Falls and the Grand Canyon?
Yes, you are even there:
despite crowds of tourists, Japanese cameras, loud American voices.

And in the relative ease and comfort of home, you are there,
with squawking hadedahs in the park,
a garden full of silent roses greeting gentle spring raindrops;
and Rusty the genial convent dog.

O LORD, our Lord, how awesome is your name through all the earth!
Praise and glory and thanksgiving to you, whose mercy endures forever!

NOTES:
* all of that gas had to come from somewhere!
† thanks to Lewis Carroll’s The Walrus and the Carpenter; the cabbages needed a companion
‡ the polite form of the traditional Australian expression