Psalm Meditation 1205 ¶Proper 11 ¶July 23, 2023 ¶Psalm 65 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+65&version=NRSVUE (NRSV) ¶The psalmist points to the awesome deeds that God performs for the sake of delivering the faithful. God does creative things like making mountains and seas. God does restorative things like send rain to water the earth and renew the flow of river waters. God does provident things like provide grain and other bounty for the sustenance of creation. God does artistic things like color the earth with a variety of colorful plants. And by looking on all of this we find great joy in God and the world. ¶This does not mean that people who do not acknowledge the presence of God in the world do not see the beauty that surrounds us all. They see the awesomeness that is the world, and beyond that to the wonders of the universe. That they do not see God at work, does not mean that they do not see beauty, it means they don’t see the work as that of God. Some folks do not see the cycles of time as awesome, they are simply ordinary. God does not get any credit from them for all the wonders that surround us, especially if they do not see the wonder that is present in creation. ¶We ask the question, ‘How can people look at the universe and not see God?,’ rather than acknowledging that not everyone sees the world through the same set of eyes. For some it is a dull and dismal place, for others it is a series of random gifts of beauty that come from somewhere beyond ourselves. For the psalmist and many of us, the world is a gift from God full of rich variety, pain and pleasure, ordinary and sublime, beauty and ugliness all for the sake of leading us deeper into the presence of God. ¶July 17, 2023 ¶LCM