awesome

Today I was walking with a small group of youth into the woods here at camp on our morning silent meditative walk. I had the most interesting experience:

Due to high winds last fall, throughout the pacific northwest, there are many trees that have fallen down. Our woods here are no exception. As we walked along a well-worn, very wide path, we suddenly came to a spot where a huge tree (about a two foot trunk width) was laying across our path. Serendipitously enough, our theme this week is "The Road, The Way" and so there we were with an unsurpassed object lesson... the teachable-moment-watcher in me was tortured because our little group had covenanted together that we would make the journey into the woods in silence, and so I was confronted with an ultimate moment of the "gappy theology" that I've previously talked about. I was not able to tell them what they should think about what was happening, wasn't able to tell them what the metaphor was, I had to trust that the tree itself spoke more than I could ever say.

Wordlessly, one of the campers led the way around the tree, through the brambles and branches, and back onto the path. And then my stomach dropped slightly: the first thing I saw when I looked up from our circumnavigation of the wind-fallen tree was a peace pole, decorated years ago by another camp, and facing me was the side that said "OUR GOD IS AN AWESOME GOD." Indeed. The fallen trees ahead and behind are visible testimonies of the awesomeness of God.

I find it so amazing that I am constantly learning new things about God. I am only now coming to terms with the awesome, destructive side of God. It almost seems un-politically-correct to say that a part of me was in awe of the beauty of the destruction that "God/creation/ultimate power/the ground of our being" is capable of. But that is exactly how I felt. I can't wait to see what other amazing things I discover about God this week.