He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.

Our house sits between a five acre wood and a ten acre pasture. My office is about 50 yards up the road overlooking the same pasture.

As I write this, looking toward the pasture I see my dim reflection in the window. The sun has not risen. But in a few minutes I will be able to see rabbits nibbling, birds flitting, perhaps a fox hurrying across the field.

When I return home my wife will have been awake only ten or fifteen minutes. But she will report to me on deer, or turkey, or even the occasional bear.

The natural world can be a dangerous place. I do not envy the rabbits, at least the squirrels can climb. It is easier to be higher on the food-chain.

In the pasture change is constant, it is also broadly predictable; life is vulnerable and beauty abounds. The sky is now a dusky purple and a mist is rising with the sun.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

But, of course, I want a great deal. I want to repair the road, fix the plumbing, plant more flowers, patch the ceiling, and clean the basement.

What I too seldom consider is how much I have, much more than I need. Vastly more than I deserve.

The Hebrew we translate as want is chacer: to be empty, decreased, diminished, lacking, in need.

The psalmist proclaims, "The Lord is my shepherd." Do I follow the Lord? Do I depend on the Lord? Do I seek the way of the Lord or my own paths?

There are ways to fulfillment. There are ways to illusion. Which have I chosen? Which will I choose today?

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.

I have heard this psalm more often than I have prayed it. But at age 19 I gave three sermons on the 23rd psalm. I was serving as an assistant chaplain at a state park in Southern Illinois. The sermons were short, silly Sunday meditations. But in the setting and the response there is a precious memory. For a few days I will see what meaning I can find today.

Adoramus Te, Christe, et benedicimus Tibi, Quia per sanctam crucem Tuam redemisti mundum, Domine, miserere nobis!

From sixth grade until graduation from high school I spent as much time as I could in woods east of town. From the 1920s until the 1960s the ground had been stripped for coal.

This was before land restoration laws had been passed. As a result thousands of acres of flat Illinois farmland had been transformed into rugged hills, deep lakes, islands, and weird rocky outcrops.

Now it was pastured and once had been used to film a cowboy movie. Mostly it was a vast space that grown-ups ignored. Great for teenage boys.

We built cabins in the pine woods. We skinny-dipped in the spillway. We collected iron pyrite as if it was real gold. We built a chapel, carrying bag after bag of quikcrete to fashion a real floor.

The chapel building was part of a two or three year period when a group of nine or ten of us had joined as the Club of Rome. Bruce and I were the co-leaders. Bruce was the plumber's son. His Dad worked alot in tin. Each of us had breastplates of tin, spraypainted in gold, some had well-fashioned Roman-like helmets. Bruce was "First Consul."

I was the Cardinal Bishop of New Wittenberg, reconciling reformation division in the wastepiles of slurry, cinder, and clay. I wore a cardboard miter on which I had reproduced, in magic marker, a gold and blue byzantine image of Christ ascending.

My principal task as spiritual leader was, at the place we had set our boundary separating "Roman" territory from that of our parents, to raise my hands and sing, "Adoramus te, Christe..."

We adore Thee, O Christ, And we bless Thee, Who by the holy cross have redeemed the world, Who have suffered for us! Lord, have mercy upon us!

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Recently I had dinner with a suspicious, skeptical, and evidently unhappy man. He had known plenty of shams and participated in a few himself. On most scorecards, his career had been a success. But not for him. I don't know about drudgery, but he had plenty of broken dreams... and he seemed intent on breaking those of others. While the food was wonderful, the dinner was unpleasant.

Last evening lightening bounced about inside the clouds. No bolt to the ground. No threatening thunder. This morning ten thousand - and more - fireflies are dancing in the meadow. My grandma's dinner table shines. It has, perhaps, been my desk for as many years as the family gathered about it. The coffee is strong and hot.

The unpleasant - or worse - and the pleasant are each real. But I am inclined to give more time and thought to the unpleasant. I see it as a threat to be deciphered or a fracture to be healed. I am, it often seems, called to action by the unpleasant. The pleasant I tend to take for granted.

Yet this morning, at least, it occurs to me that the unpleasant man is gone. My grandma's table is still here. The fireflies have returned for another summer. The lightening flashes as it has since the first second of creation. The coffee reminds me of my first sip in Vienna more than thirty years ago. The pleasant persists.

From the scripture assigned for today, "The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love, teach me your statutes. You have dealt well with your servant..." Beauty abounds and God's love surrounds us, may we make time, place, and opportunity to notice.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

At fifteen I had no clear conception of God, but there was something slightly scandalous in the broad tolerance of that "whatever."

Over the years I have considered many explanations for and manifestations of God. The vast majority strike me as commendable.

I have settled on a God that is beneficently mysterious, and whom I can know through the example of Jesus and the working of nature.

It has been much more difficult to keep peace with my own soul, and especially with my aspirations. These are less consistently beneficent.

Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, Plato and many others - each in their own way - teach that peace is the outcome of aiming our labors and aspirations toward divine intention.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

I can make a case that the universe is unfolding as it ought. But while the case is credible, it implies a universe largely indifferent to the plight of particular trees, stars, or children.

The universe is unfolding, changing, opening. It's general direction and character seems beyond much influence. But how this change is experienced by a particular place, time, and people depends on how each of us are unfolding, changing, and opening.

Are we resisting or reflecting? Do I help or hurt? Are you neglectful or attentive? Are we creative partners in the unfolding or do we wreak havoc and destruction in opposition?