The world rings with praise only because the whole of creation is in on it!
Praise the Lord! The sun and moon, the sea, fire and snow, speckled frogs and spotted dogs, wrens and thrushes, old men with walkers and little babies who do little more than drool and sleep. The world joins up in the praise parade not with words, but with being. The snow whirls, the fires roar, the frogs croak, the cows moo, the birds sing, the old men sigh, and the little babies burp.
In short, we learn to praise God not by paying compliments, but by paying attention.
Have you ever watched a forest dance in the wind? Or listened to the symphony of a thunderstorm? Or sat in the silence and sound of a church service? Or experienced the fog lifting while you’re on the back of a motorcycle on your way to the zoo?
We can praise when all is well and when all is hell because, as Frederick Buechner puts it, “What’s lost is nothing to what’s found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup.”
