Northern Minnesota can be beautiful, and it can be brutal. Spring and fall up north are refreshing but short. Winter is cold, snowy, and often too long. Sunny days in the summer can be exceptionally hot and sunny days in the winter can be amazingly cold. In our time up north, we experienced summer temperatures above one hundred degrees and in winter as cold as minus forty degrees. As with many places, if you do not like the weather, just wait ten minutes and it will change.
An interesting topic for meditation is how Jesus used nature in His teaching. A quick examination of only His parables will find the nature parables of the Sower, the weeds among the wheat, the mustard seed, the laborers in the vineyard, the budding fig tree, the growing seed, the tenant farmers, and the barren fig tree. Jesus also used examples from nature referring to the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, the skies at night, the rains falling and the floods coming, the fruit of the trees, the vine and the branches, and many more.
In John 3:8 Jesus says, “The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” In Ecclesiastes 11:5 we read, “Just as you do not know how the life breath enters the human frame in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the work of God who is working in everything.” These are mysteries to us. St. Paul uses the word mystery twenty times in his epistles not referring to nature but to spiritual matters.
In the Scriptures, a mystery is not something to be solved; it can never be fully understood or penetrated; it is something to be mined and can never be fully mined; and there will always be something new. We are to meditate upon the mysteries and contemplate their meaning and application to our lives to deepen our faith.
When you are finished contemplating the mysteries of nature, try your hand at the Trinity; the Incarnation; the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension; the Church; and many more. Enjoy the ride.
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