I’m no expert on world religions, having invested my entire life immersed in Christianity, but it seems to me that one of the things that all of the major religions of the world hold in common is a sense of awe. A deep encounter with the immensity of creation inspires an awareness of how small an individual human is and yet our capacity to take in even a small portion of this universe leaves us with a deep experience of awe.

I have experienced awe in many places, perhaps most often, but not always outdoors. I remember watching the river as a child and recognizing that it was constantly changing. The water flowing by was always different water than it had been the last time I looked. From my perspective it seemed like there was a limitless supply of water. I knew the river found its source in the melting snows of mountain glaciers. In the spring it ran high and muddy, in autumn it was clear and much lower, but it was always flowing and there was always more water to replace that which had gone by on its way to bigger rivers and eventually the ocean.

I have looked up at the night sky from a dark place and seen the immensity of the Milky Way. My eyes could focus on individual stars, but there were always more than could be counted. Even when I tried to count the stars in a small portion of the sky, I could sense that there were even more than I could see. I didn’t need a telescope or the incredible images the we have now seen from space telescopes to know that the expanse of the cosmos is huge. That feeling of awe returns whenever I look up to the skies.

I was struck by the sense of awe that came over our grandchildren a few days ago when we took them on a short walk through a section of old growth forest. Their voices became quieter than normal. Their exclamations bordered on disbelief, yet spoke of their amazement at a very real experience. “How can a tree be 15 stories high?” “I can’t believe that this tree is over 700 years old!” “I can’t even see the top of this tree.”

My life has given me countless sunrises and sunsets that inspire me to simply sit and watch the show of light and color and dazzling brilliance.

But I have also experienced awe as I was invited to sit with a family at the bedside of their dying father. At the moment he breathed his last we all simply sat in silence for a while, taking in the power of an interface of human mortality and eternal life. He had died. Yet we all knew that this was not the end of his story, his influence on those of us in that hospital room, his legacy, his presence in generations yet unborn.

The one thing that my experiences of awe share in common is that they challenge the capacity of language to express. I am a writer and sometimes I am a poet willing to wrestle with words. I believe in the power of literature. But I am also keenly aware of the limits of words. There are times when silence speaks more powerfully than any sermon. There are moments when all the words in the world are insufficient to describe the power present. The best we can do with language is to point the way to that which is beyond. Essentially that is what I have attempted to do with my preaching - point beyond myself and beyond this moment. Perhaps sometimes I have succeeded in sparking that sense of awe in others. I know that I have felt awe in the presence of others who are skilled with using words.

I remember stopping my car near the crest of a hill in southwest North Dakota one day and looking out at the expanse of the prairie. Aside from the fence line and the highway there were no signs of human presence. I could not see any houses or barns. Only the prairie stretched before me, not unlike what had been seen by the ancients when they walked on the land in search of food. I could sense a storm brewing on the horizon and summer thunderstorms on the prairie are amazing experiences in themselves. I knew that I could see more than a mile in every direction, an experience that was uncommon for a kid who grew up next to the mountains. I was awestruck at the immensity of the horizon.

Horizons continue to inspire awe in me. They are reminders of the meeting place of that which is temporal and that which is eternal. Here I am, one tiny person in one brief moment. I am so small compared with the vastness of the universe. And yet I have been endowed with an awareness of this immensity. I am a bit of this universe that is conscious of it. I give it the theological name of incarnation. The physical nature of the universe somehow is infused with my personal physical experience. The vastness becomes present. The eternal becomes human.

These days I am often looking out to the ocean and from my vantage point I am struck with the size of the ocean and the vastness of this planet. I paddle in a protected bay at the edge of the Salish Sea. There is no direction in which I could paddle that would not bring me to an island. Behind every island in the Strait of Georgia is another island and beyond those islands is giant Vancouver Island. And yet the water upon which I float is directly connected to the vastness of the Pacific Ocean and that ocean connects with all of the other oceans on this planet which still has more of its surface covered by water than by land. As I peer at the horizon and ponder the place where the sky meets the sea, I am filled with awe.

I will continue to worship in churches and I will continue to seek the community of congregations, but all alone in my tiny boat on the immensity of the sea I know that worship cannot be contained by a building.

I am in awe. Literally. I float in the midst of grandeur.