Would you come with me to an incredible place? Let me take you down into my summer neighborhood on the west side of Kodiak Island.

You won't need boots or a lifejacket today. I'm wearing them for you. I want you to see this, to see who  lives here in this bay, who shares these salt waters with us. 

Here, maybe just as in your neighborhood, the rocks DO cry out already, stacked with ledges and condos of chicks and mamas, all cooing and singing their gull-y songs of flying and happy being . .. .

And of course, not them alone, but fox and deer, otters and puffins, and always the eagles.

I have been here a very long time, but still, I wonder, and maybe you do as well:

Are they here for us?  Are they here to enliven and ornament and animate our quiet black rocks and silent grey beaches?

Or, is this their given task---to entertain us, so we can ogle and photo and show them off, to our own glory?

Or, are they here as signposts to our great and glorious God, their own maker, to point us beyond ourselves?

 Yes on this one, but more even than this. They live beyond us, in their own salty gardens and rich noisy families and rocky condos and ocean cities. They live their full lives without us, not needing us or wanting us.

We, however, need them.  Desperately.  We often can't remember who we are, or whose we are, or where our food and our very breath come from. 

But they do not forget.  They don't need  us  to glory in their Maker. They already know in their little gull heart, in their seal spirit, their eaglet mind that God is their creator, the one who loves them and feeds them.


                                                         ( fish for dinner)









But we forget. Until we look around. Then, if we are truly seeing, we can say with the Psalmist, 

What a wildly wonderful world, God!
You made it all, with Wisdom at your side,
made earth overflow with your wonderful creations!
Oh look! The deep, wide sea, brimming with fish
past counting, sardines and sharks and salmon. 
All the creatures look expectantly to you
  to give them their meals on time.
You come and they gather around;
you open your hand and they eat from it.
If you turned your back, they'd die in a minute---
Take back your Spirit and they die, revert to original mud;
Send out your Spirit and they spring to life--
    the whole countryside in bloom and blossom!

Let God enjoy His creation!

O, Let me sing to God all my life long!     
                                                  ----Ps. 104 (The Message)