The Sermon of All Creation: An Introduction Fall Ferns and Trees Cold Mountain Spring Water Red Dawn Sunset Eye of the Desert Wildflowers Marshlands Setting Sun Cacti Purple Sky Snow on Cedars Spreading Branches Twilight Yellow Mist

slide 11 of 16 God’s providence embraces the whole universe.… By contemplating the beauty and use of each thing, (one who has acquired the habit of detachment) is filled with love for the Creator. He surveys all visible things: the sky, the sun, moon, stars and clouds, rain, snow and hail … thunder, lightning, the winds and breezes and the way they change, the seasons, the years…; the fourlegged animals, the wild beasts and animals and reptiles, all the birds, the springs and rivers, the many varieties of plants and herbs, both wild and cultivated. He sees in all things the order, the equilibrium, the proportion, the beauty, the rhythm, the union, the harmony, the usefulness, the variety, the motion, the colors, the shapes, the reversion of things to their source, permanence in the midst of corruption. Contemplating thus all created realities, he is filled with wonder. Peter of Damascus (ca. 1027-1107)