Seasons of drought.

Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens,
    You who have done great things. Who is like You? Psalm 71:19

Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it. Isaiah 42:5

For in Him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17:28

Prayer is the light of the spirit, and the spirit, raised up to heaven by prayer, clings to God with the utmost tenderness. It is the longing for God, love too deep for words, a gift not given by humans, but by God’s grace. –John Chrysostom, 347-407

The spiritual life does not remove us from the world but leads us deeper into it. -Henri Nouwen

Creator God, You taught us to pray. Now help us pray for our daily bread while laboring with love for those who hunger. We confess that we often feel weary, incapable, and uncertain of how to live in this world. Help us to find rest in your presence and comfort in knowing that you are active in all living things. Show us how to hallow Your name while striving for justice in our relationships and in society. May our whole lives become a prayer, ever to Your glory. Amen.

More and more, my prayers have become silence, resting in His presence without words, opening up my soul to be filled with His Spirit.

I am also ever-more-aware of the unity of His Spirit, connecting so many beings, much like the deep creosote roots which stretch across the Sonoran desert, bringing refreshment to a dry, thirsty land. His word echoes again and again each new morning, across the years and across the seas, He is one, and He is in us and we in Him. 

The creosote breathes in the morning, opening up its stomata while the air is cool and relatively humid; this is when it undergoes photosynthesis, changing light energy into matter.

The creosote provides a place of shelter for a wide range of community of algae, fungi and bacteria. It is from a combination of this and dust that has settled on its branches between storms that allows creosote bush to pick up nine times as much phosphorus and sixteen times as much nitrogen than is in regular rainwater. Community makes it stronger.

May I, like my beloved creosote, be a sweet fragrance in this weary world today, hallowed be His name.