“And they shall know that I am the Lord.”
(Ezekiel 6.13 and repeated over 60 times throughout the book)

I ask myself why I love travel vistas and rooms with a view.
 
I believe the awe that I feel looking at a distant mountain, a wide plain, an enclosing forest, an ocean horizon provoking imaginings of what country I would reach if I sailed straight ahead, and a painting depicting a vista outside a window offering escape from a dark constricted interior, is prophetic. These views offer proof of the inescapable presence of God. One person’s view is another’s vision.
 
As I read Ezekiel, one of the prophetic books of the Bible, I think about what prophecy is. Literally, Ezekiel predicts events in advance because God appears to Ezekiel and gives him important messages. Ezekiel repeatedly warns the Israelites to obey God, or risk destruction. During the first half of the book, the Israelites repeatedly refuse to see. Consequently, disaster strikes Jerusalem. The second half of Ezekiel describes a New Jerusalem of the future, a paradise with a new name meaning The Lord is There (Ezekiel 48.35). So, prophecy seems linked to knowledge of the presence of God, of knowing he is everywhere.
 
Are you lost in a dark interior of your own making where it is hard to see the divine in a pile of laundry or other undone tasks of daily existence? Step out. Look around you for the divine and remember to love God.
 
Dear God, thank you for the refreshment summer provides. Help us to see your presence in the good and bad surrounding us as we travel toward the place where you are. Amen

Contributed by Susan
Monday August 8, 2011
Liturgical Year A: Week 37
Liturgical Color: Green
Sunday Gospel reading:
Lectionary 19 (Proper 14)
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost