Wonder

I'm a bit in love with Emeli Sande's song, Wonder. It's a real 'whirl around the kitchen and hope they neighbours aren't watching' tune and when I hear it I wish more than anything that we could have this kind of music in church. So I decided to play it when I led worship last week. What can I say, I'm a maverick!

The theme of wonder is very dear to my heart. Before I began training for ordination I spent some time organizing a science festival. We spent a whole lot of time talking about wonder. How to get the kids to really see, to really experience the world around them and fall in love with it, even a little bit. It seems to me that we all need to do a bit of that.

I'm a scientist by training. I don't have any qualms with evolution. I think it's quite beautiful. But I also see the hand of God in everything on this earth, in evolution itself. Every flower, every field, every mountain, most especially, every human face. I'm lucky to have some exceptionally gifted photographer friends and this video contains of some of their most beautiful photos that evoked pure wonder in me.

 

Doesn't in make you want to grab a camera, get out there and get snapping?
 

As well as belting out brilliant new tunes I also happened to be part of a team putting together a service based around creation this week and I wrote this prayer for it. So I finish with that - celebrating a God who makes bumble bees, roses, oak trees. And you and me.

Lord of all creation, 
who gathered the seas together
and raised the mountains by a single word.
Draw us together by your Holy Spirit,
by whose wisdom the foundations of the earth were set in place,
to worship you in wonder and awe,
through Jesus Christ,
the first born of the new creation.
Amen