We’re exploring this question and response in four ways these weeks leading up to Christmas. This week, breathtaking…

Because I Love You - Breathtaking (aired Dec 5) There is the simple beauty of nature, and then there is the other end of the spectrum; phenomena so grand, so unfathomably vast, that it can be terrifying. It is easy to feel insignificant, small and lost in a universe as infinite as ours. Or you can hear a voice in its immensity saying, “And yet, there is a place for you!” Join us this week to experience a variety of ways you are told “I love you” as your breath is stolen.

Do you feel a sense of being loved when your breath is stolen by the magnitude of what you're looking at?

”When we listen and take in the astonishingly sensuous earth, we come awake to the thunderous beauty that surrounds us. We are literally inundated with the world pouring through every opening and in this awareness, we recognize a fundamental truth: we are of the earth. In fact, as cosmologist Brian Swimme suggests, humans were put on earth to gawk. That is our cosmological destiny! To be astonished, amazed, delighted in the intricate weavings of the cosmos is to listen fully and to send out our sigh of appreciation is what is asked in return." - Francis Weller

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

    the moon and the stars that you have established;

what are human beings that you are mindful of them,

    Mortals that you care for them? - Ps 8.3-4

Something to try: These quotes both suggest a loving conversation between us and the Cosmos/God/The Divine. Can you imagine sharing a loving conversation between you and God about something you find breathtaking? Imagine it in writing.

Pause Box: The Pause Box is a ritual for this season before Christmas to help you practice, discover and share the love that the world holds for you. Try it this week! You don’t need just the right supplies or even questions - the important part is making a physical space and time to pause. You can practice it on your own, with a friend, family or Fabric group. All of them will have their own kind of value.