The entire world feels noisy to me today. My whole being wants to rebel against the manufactured sphere in which I maneuver, struggling with internet connection and email that won’t load and highway traffic.

Recently I stood at the beach, letting the waves wash over my feet. I looked out across the field of water, taking in the color and the movement and the sheer power. I imagined the moon at work, pulling the water toward her and then letting go, a celestial hand pushing the waves along. And for how many centuries has this ocean watered this beach, and what about the millions of creatures and rocks that make up this sand, and what did this particular spot look like a million years ago, or two million?

All of this magnificence is the sacred work of God’s hands. Yet often I am blind to holy grandeur. I become disconnected from creation, allowing the freeways, traffic, expansive commercial complexes, business offices, check-out lines, industrial carpeting, laptops, and cell phones that surround me to dull my soul.

Yet even in these human-made monoliths, the sacred can be perceived. A beautiful geometric shape, a splash of light refracted into a rainbow, the capacious space in-between things. And God, in all and before all and beyond all.

I close my eyes, take a breath, and open them again. And there is the Holy Spirit, swooping along the corridor, singing and daring me to smile.