Creator

Asking the question, "Who do you say that I am?" can bring up many answers depending on mood or environment.  Here on Whidbey Island, the answers ultimately always come back to community and creator.  Today it was much more creator than community.  While we do everything together, whale watching brought God the Creator, to front of our minds and kept it there.  Through our time here we have seen God in nature, God in people, God in really great meals together, and today we saw God in the whales.

However great this may sound, our day did not start off well.  We woke this morning with no water in our house.  It was a bit unnerving to know that there would be no shower, no coffee, no water bottles when we left the house.  Before we left, we had morning prayer as we have done each morning here.  The closing remarks of our morning prayer read as followed:

"I am in this day.  I am in this moment.  God has given me a new day.  I will make all I can of it."

With this in our hearts and excitement pushing us out the door, we headed to the northern most part of the island.  Deception Pass Bridge was the first thing to open our eyes to the day ahead.  Shortly the

re after, we got the call saying the water is back on and all was well.

We crossed the bridge, got our stay warm suits, and headed to boat for a 3 hour whale watching extravaganza.

During the ride out to the whales, I was reminded of an ancient Jewish idea of God the Creator.  In ancient Jewish times God was referred to as Yahweh.  This name was never spoken because it was considered holy, and to say another's name meant you knew that person very well.  In print, Yahweh was shortened to YHWH and is how we get LORD in our scripture.  But the important thing here are the Hebrew letters Yod, Hey, Vah, Hey (YHWH).  This are all breath sounds.  The ancient Jewish people believe that because these were breath sounds and the name of God was forbidden any and all things breathing say the name of God each time they breath in and out.  They acknowledged the presence of God with every breath.  They breathed God in to sustain life and breathed God out for all the world to experience.

When thinking of God in this way, God the Creator, takes on a new deeper meaning.  All things in deception pass (people, trees, fish, birds, and water, are all acknowledging God is present.  God is giving life.  God is the creator of all things.  This was especially true as we saw the whales come up to breath God in.  When they first reached the water surface we could actually see them exhaling God back into the world.  Right before they disappeared, they breathed deeply and gave themselves life with a breath of God.

How fortunate we are to be apart of this.  How fortunate we are see what we see.  How fortunate we are to be in this place at this time.  How fortunate we are to take in God's Creation for us.  Its mind blowing that he made it all for us to enjoy.  Every rock, grain of sand, snow covered mountain, whale, and person are all created so that we might enjoy one another and enjoy seeing God in all things that we encounter.  How fortunate we are for seeing all of this and then enjoying ice cream together!  Amen!