The Great Outdoors

Have you ever been moved emotionally by Nature?

As a youth, don’t think I ever really grasped how beautiful Nature really is. I was a Boy Scout, like many of my friends. As such, I spent a considerable amount of time outdoors camping, fishing, and hiking.

And yet, it was lost on me then. For whatever reason, call it the foolishness of youth I suppose, I never stopped to appreciate my surroundings. My head was always into sports, it was what I really loved, and I just didn’t take in all the natural beauty that surrounded me on all those camping trips.

Now, fast forward to yesterday. I travel some for work, usually day trips. These trips can take me into major metropolitan areas, or, like yesterday, to towns that time has seemingly forgotten. I’d often ventured to the small little town I visited yesterday, and certainly knew of its natural beauty, being surrounded by the mountains. Only, when I drove into the town, with its one major street, and of course, no traffic lights (!), I noticed things a bit more.

As you pull in to this particular town, you are greeted with one of the more spectacular views you’ll ever hope to see. The little town is nestled against the Blue Ridge Mountains, and one cannot help but notice the beauty. I drove up Main Street, and for a minute or two, everything else ceased to exist. Nothing was left save for the beauty of those old wooden houses against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I turned off the radio in my vehicle. It just seemed wholly inappropriate to have any other noise except the “sounds” of that town, and those majestic mountains. A voice inside my head kept telling me to “listen to the land”.

The world was just perfect for that one moment in time. And I knew, once again, that there most certainly is a God in Heaven.

How many times do we all take for granted the natural beauty that is all around us? It costs us nothing to view it, to take it all in. Yet, in the hustle and bustle of our lives, it can be forgotten. One of God’s greatest gifts to us is the canvas he’s given us as the backdrop of our life here on Earth. The canvas is Nature, in all its glory, and if we but stop and look and listen awhile, we’ll be enriched beyond measure each time.

I laugh sometimes at the memory of that boy who had his head in baseball statistics, while camping in the midst of absolute splendor. Whoever said, and I paraphrase, “…youth is wasted on the young” was right. Oh well, better late than never I suppose to develop a true appreciation of the natural world. I encourage each of you this week, wherever you may be, to stop and notice the natural surroundings. Even in a city park, in the middle of millions of people, you can find areas of enormous beauty, and peace.

You’ll find God there too. I’ve often thought I see God a lot more clearly in a beautiful sunset, or on top of a mountain peak, than in a church building. I tend to believe its in the outdoors that He does his best work!

-The Minister

Spoken Words

Do you ever think that the next message you hear from a friend, a co-worker, or even a stranger might be a message sent directly to you from the Big Guy?

I didn’t use to believe that myself. It’s only after I started opening my eyes, and noticing how many times it seemed coincidental that the exact word of encouragement or the right words of praise always seemed to come my way from someone at exactly the right time I needed to hear them. It happened even today, in just a routine business meeting, that the gentleman sitting across the desk from me shared a bit of his philosophy of life, and in so doing, inspired me to look at things a bit differently.

He was lamenting that children, specifically his own, don’t continue to believe in magic when they grow up. And yet, he knew the world is filled with magic, the magic that comes from seeing a certain destiny or world one wants created in his or her own imagination, and then manifesting that in reality. To my colleague, that is the real magic of life, a magic he wants his own children to continue to believe in, long after the real world has imposed its non-magical beliefs upon them.
I was having a rather routine day, one in which I needed to be reminded that there is indeed magic in the world. A magic that exists when you believe in your ability to manifest your own dreams in reality. I needed this message, on this particular day, at that particular moment. Do you think that was just a coincidence?

Years ago, I would’ve believed it was just good timing, nothing more than coincidental. Events in my life, however, have led me to believe that was no mere coincidence. Just God, talking to me through the voice of another. Just God, once again, telling me a great truth of life.

He does this a lot, you know. For years, I was deaf to it. But I’ve come to believe this is one way He communicates with us, letting us know the truth about life, gently giving us comforting words at the right time, or just nudging us further along the right path. I’ve learned to stop ignoring these messages.

Take it from someone who for years used to ignore great pearls of wisdom when given to him. It may be the voice of a friend telling you them, but the words are straight from The Man Upstairs.

-The Minister

Welcome

Welcome to my world.

This blog will be an attempt to, through my own experience, give back to others, and help them become just a wee bit happier and live life with more meaning. You see, I am on a quest for meaning, and I suspect others are too. I’ve always been on a quest it turns out, I just didn’t know where that quest was heading.

I’m a deeply spiritual person, always have been. Yet, at the various times I’ve explored formally beginning training for the ministry, something has always pulled me back. Whether it was the knowledge that I couldn’t handle or didn’t agree with all of the dogma that I would have to learn, or simply the daunting task of being a man of the cloth and all that entails, I couldn’t make the leap.

But, I continued to search. I’m also a searcher by nature you see. I’ve been searching for the answers to life’s most complex questions for the better part of my time here on Earth. And, no, I don’t have the answers currently, but nevertheless, I remain undeterred in my quest for higher knowledge. But, I digress.

I’ve made the discovery that if there isn’t a ministry that I feel completely called to study on a formal basis, then I’ll just have to move forward with my own. Now I know my quest is to begin my own ministry, my own special brand of insight into life’s most complex issues.

So, I now knight myself a minister, the head minister of my own ministry. This my friends is The Ministry of the Mundane.

Mundane you say? Who the heck wants to read about the mundane in our world, you ask? Why, when my entire day is filled with nothing but the mundane would I ever wish to read about more of it?

Good questions all gentle reader. My answer, while not immediately satisfying to you, is that God and the real essence of spirituality is actually found in the everyday mundane circumstances and events of our lives, and not outside of it. It is in the mundane that we find meaning, that we find substance, that we find, well, God.

If you will follow along with me my friend(s), I promise to explore ways that will help us all see God in the mundane. Hopefully, by so seeing Him there, and the beauty that He weaves into our lives on a daily basis, our lives can start to take on more meaning.

And He is most definitely there. This morning, for example, I was having a major dose of the Monday-blahs. I was pretty darn low, failing to see the meaning of my job and the endless hours of routine tasks that I faced. As I pulled into town, however, almost as if somebody was listening to my innermost dialogue, a song came on the radio that seemed as if it was timed for me at precisely that moment. It was a song about keeping on in the face of adversity, never quitting, always trying to find that elusive dream. The song, I’m reasonably sure wasn’t written from God’s point of view, at least intentionally, but doggone it, it was no coincidence that I heard it at that precise time. It was a beautiful moment, and I wept at the sheer joy of it. 4 minutes prior to that, I felt alone. After that song, I felt loved.

It’s these moments, these day to day joys that on the surface seem to be nothing more than coincidences or random occurings, that provide the meaning in our lives if we just listen to them, if we just see and hear the messages being sent to us. He’s everywhere folks, every single place we could possibly imagine, He’s there. And, He wants to dialogue with us, He’s longing for us to hear Him.

Now, no worries my friends if you are reading this, while this is indeed my Ministry, I guess making me the head Minister, I am not here to preach to you. Oh, certainly, I’ll get passionate at times, trying to get a point across. But, I’m not here to tell you, and never will, how to live your life. For that, there’s plenty of material, and not all of it good. I’m simply here to share with you where and how I see God, what I think He’s saying to me, perhaps to all of us, and by so doing, maybe cause you to see your life differently, and with more meaning.

So, once again, welcome to The Ministry of the Mundane. I promise you, it will be a worthwhile trip. We’ll laugh together, cry a bit, and share some new memories and stories. All the while, we’ll explore this great big beautiful world, and find out together the meaning that is all around us, in the mundane, everyday details of our lives.

Thanks so much for reading.

-The Minister