Dr. Clyde S. Kilby, longtime English professor and noted devotee/interpreter of C. S. Lewis, formulated and passed along 11 life resolutions. The tasks he strived to do every day were designed to keep his heart open to imagination and his eyes open for God. One of his resolutions reads: “Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are, but simply be glad that they are.” Kilby’s lifelong belief was that wonder lies all around us, if only we have the eyes to see it.

Scripture tells us that God’s wonder and majesty are woven into all of creation. Wherever we turn, wisps of glory and bits of beauty announce to us that God is near. The psalmist announces that “the skies display [God’s] craftsmanship” (19:1). And these skies (and all that lies beneath them) tell a story. Oh, how they tell a story! “Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make Him known” (v.2).

The fact remains, however, that we have to be listening; we have to be looking. The voices echoing all around us, in every yellow daffodil and rippling creek and whispering willow, are strange voices. They do not yell. They do not shout and struggle to capture our attention. Rather, they “speak without a sound or word” (v.3).

A beautiful mystery: Creation always speaks, yet never says a word. And the name always spoken, though never uttered, is God.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning captures the spirit of the psalmist: “Earth’s crammed with heaven. And every common bush afire with God. But only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”