Last week I spent a wonderful afternoon facilitating a spiritual journal writing group at my church. As I was leaving, I drove through the parking lot where I approached our chapel, a small round building with thick bushes at the front. The chapel is a very sacred place where we have a Communion service every Wednesday at noon. It’s one of my favorite places on the church campus.
I was driving slowly on an ordinary afternoon. When I made the turn in front of the chapel to continue on towards the main road, something caught my eye. An enormous bird stepped out of the bushes. She appeared to be nearly five feet tall. Her long graceful legs carried her swiftly along towards the lawn adjacent to the chapel. Her feathers were gray blue in color and her presence was holy.
I was awestruck. I stopped the car and rolled down the window, not taking my eyes from the bird I fumbled in my purse, on the seat beside me, for my camera. She stopped and cocked her head in my direction. For an instant our eyes made contact and then she spread her wings wide and soared low near the ground to the lawn some distance away. She made her elegant landing at a place where she felt safe.
My camera received two images that afternoon, but my heart and spirit received so much more. I had never been in the
presence of a Great Blue Heron. For a moment when I first saw her, my mind scrambled to name her. Crane… Stork… Heron…. Blue Heron!!
Looking into her large steely eye was like beholding the Eye of God… of Creation. Every fiber of my being was momentarily caught in the web of the Great Mystery. I so easily could have missed the entire encounter if I had glanced in another direction for just a moment.
Life is like that. Things are Divinely timed. The world of Spirit is always in our midst but sometimes it “shows up” in a way that startles us with Wonder and Amazement. The heron inspired and reinvigorated my sense of awe with her brief and mysterious visitation. We shared a momentary encounter. For an instant we were united in a state of mutual reverence and sacred mystery. We were two of God’s creatures, linked momentarily in time and space, breathing the same air, each of us curious about the other. I pray my heart will stay open and undistracted to fully witness the Sacred Mystery of Life the next time God reveals the extraordinary in the midst of the ordinary. I pray to stay awake!
