It’s a snow day where I live in Colorado Springs. Schools and offices are closed, meetings cancelled, drivers advised to stay off the roads. While the snow is just gently falling on the pines in our back yard, other places north and east of us will experience howling winds and tall drifts.

A day to snuggle down with a good book, cup of tea and glowing fireplace embers? Or am I trapped by thinking of all the items on my Monday list that won’t get accomplished? All those ordinary things that bind me to the here and now?

Watching the falling flakes reminded me of a song we sang in church yesterday, words lifting me out of my ordinary perspective into how the very creation majestically responds to the glory of the Creator.

Your voice it thunders
The oaks start twisting
The forest sounds with cedars breaking
The waters see You and start their writhing
From the depths a song is rising
Now it’s rising from the ground
Holy, Holy Lord, the earth is Yours and singing…

Your voice it thunders
The ground is shaking
The mighty mountains now are trembling
Creation sees You
and starts composing
The fields and trees, they start rejoicing
Now it’s rising from the ground…
Holy, Holy Lord, the earth is Yours and singing…*

 The poet is not trapped by the ordinary as he imagines the creation bursting with praise. The prophet Isaiah thousands of years ago also closed his eyes to his mundane list of things to do:

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. (Isaiah 55:12)

Today in the midst of making soup or baking bread, I want to watch the snow and—perhaps just for moments—imagine all creation singing, “Look at me! I am God’s and you can see Him as you look at me if you just shift your heart and mind from the ordinary to My extraordinary! Holy, holy, holy Lord, the earth is Yours and singing…”

*Michael Gungor