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| The Voice of the Lord
“The voice of the Lord is heard in all its might and majesty” (Ps. 29: 4)
God calls to us in a myriad ways. To us individually he may speak to our hearts in silence; to his world which he loves so much he may shout in glory and power. And of course there are many shades of grey in between. The meditation pieces below were inspired by standing on different shores in Scotland, New Zealand & Canada.
I
God is speaking in the unceasing crash of huge waves on the rocky shore; his voice sounds out in the gulls whose cries are whipped away by the wind. In the horizontal spray over the surface of the rolling waves his voice sharpens the hiss of white foam, streaking in lines down-wind. God's strength call out from the security of this rocky island, battered by all that nature can throw, but yet remaining ever-sure, never-changing. God¹s gentleness speaks in the huddle of
wa ders, clustered together, facing the wind on the grass at the top of the bay. High mabove, the lightning cracks flash across the sea, momentarily revealing distant hills across the water.The thunder booms and echoes against itself - and God is there in power and strength.
St Kilda, Scotland
II
Inland the wind is constant in the oak-wood, tops bent against the prevailing south-west; the constancy of God, in the trees - bending, but not breaking. On the woodland floor the ferns catch twists of moving air in its randomness - and twirl side the side. Wrens scurry in their silence under the outcrops of moss-covered rocks; blackbirds wait, expectant for their next move, feathers riffling this way and that in the breeze, before darting to their next meeting - God’s creation still working against all the elements, quietly, interdependently.
Surprisingly God’s peace is present in this howling of wind in the forest, in the crashing of the water on rocks, in the sucking back of waves as they recede to their next onslaught; God’s peace is there in the stability of his world, working in God’s harmony with itself and with the forces around.
Argyll, Scotland
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III
High up in the pine trees the quiet hush of the breeze in the branches sighs of God’s glory. His voice is heard where the wavelets lap again...again... again on the granite rocks which plunge deep into the dark, brown water.
 The voice of the Lord is heard echoing over the lakes in the deep forest, far from man kind. God speaks through the trickle of a stream over stones and fallen twigs, past mossy rocks and dipping into pools the size of your hand. Far away His voice calls in the cry of the Loons. In the silence of a winter’s night when no human eye can see the thick depths of snow covering all the ground, God speaks, gently and quietly - heard by no-one, but heard by all.
Algonquin, Canada
IV
God’s voice is present too in the dry cold of a mountain top.
On a windless day, the snow lies in huge banks, waiting for the melt of spring.
Oystercatchers shrill alarm calls to their mate, the noise of which contrast with the
silence of the surrounding ranges which roll away in huge strength to the north and
south and east and west.
Old Man Range, NZ
V
God’s peace is also found in the stillness of a quiet evening at the shore. .His voice is in the barely-perceptible rustle of the tide as it moves steadily up the beach. He speaks in the cries of the gulls and geese and curlew flying to roost, in the movement of a vole in the undergrowth beneath the bracken. His presence is in the smell of wood-smoke from a shore-fire and in the crackle of the burning twigs as they blaze with renewed energy just as they did on a Galilean shore with the smell of fried fish wafting out to watching fishermen. He is present in the gentle swaying of a blade of grass and in the beetle running purposefully across the face of a stone.  High above, Orion and Pleiades declare His wonder and power, surrounded by the myriad heavenly bodies covering the silver-grey sky above the quiet waters of the sea beyond our island.
Eynhallow, Orkney
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And of course, if these are God’s calls to us, what shall be our response…..?
Paul Heppleston
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