Posted on by Lois Stephens · 1 Comment

Crossing Life’s Bridges: Embracing the Unknown

The meadow sparkles in the clearing ahead — far beyond the  narrow footbridge I’ve come upon on today’s walk in the woods.  The shadow of an old pine flits back and forth across the weather-worn timbers and I stop, unable to  move.

The shadow enters the landscape of my mind: to cross this narrow bridge means leaving the familiar path I’m on and moving into unknown parts.  Land I’ve never walked before that may not be safe or where I may not be welcomed. Do I take a risk and forge ahead or do I turn back to the safety of the familiar?

A voice speaks within.  Keep walking and remember what it feels like to be part of something large, something timeless, a world that welcomes you beyond your current experience – a world that reaches beyond you and includes you, too.

So I walk … I remember … I am enlarged.

When spiritual truth and nature meet, I follow the Voice to its source and find an eternal display of meaning and connection.  I find the wisdom and the courage to embrace the unknown and to keep moving, letting go of the past (the good and the bad of it all) and moving into the future with hopeful anticipation trusting God’s good plan for my life.

Love & Peace,

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead. Philippians 3:13

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

Posted on by Lois Stephens · 2 Comments

The Raven Speaks

As for me, time spent in nature means time spent connecting and communicating with our Creator God.  And ravens speak to me.  Not literally, of course (lest you think I’ve lost my mind completely).  And not in some dark, macabre way, as some would imagine.  But in a coruscating light-filled visionary way, I suppose.

Sauntering through a shop in the historic district of Old Quebec, a glistening black-winged raven catches my eye. Ravens—independent flight takers of wilderness heights. I admire it.  Perhaps even envy it.

“Do you like ravens?”  The young Inuit shop keeper takes me off guard.

Words spill out, bubbling over, in an attempt to put language to thoughts never voiced. 

The shop keeper translates for me, “Oh, it’s your totem”.

Don’t go there, religion whispers.  But the raven speaks louder, and I make a decision to choose connection without judgment.

“Why, yes.  It’s my totem”.

And in that sacred moment, together we move, my First Nations brother and I, to a higher spiritual plane.  Choosing connection at his heart level and communication through his heart language, I become a trail sister on life’s journey towards closer communion (common union) with our common Father.

Nature is the common language in which God is revealed.  Nature, and all creation, testifies to God.  It speaks a common heart language to all mankind.  And I listen … in any way He chooses to speak.

Love & Peace,

“Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”  Job 12:7-10