Devotions

Based on the story of St Francis preaching to the birds:

Feathered congregation,

Gathering without being called.

Hushed we listen,

Inquisitive heads tilted.

Joyful in our listening,

Keen-eyed, we saw what the crowd missed:

Listening is a kind of love.

Meek little birds,we may be, but we stayed. That was enough.

-DTH-

Sacred am I the small dove,

Tender am I the war horse,

Unafraid am I the fox,

Velvety am I the moth coming to the lamp to die,

Wild the whole world, and it is all our brother.

-DTH-

*Inspired by St Francis' Canticle of the Sun with a Remembrance Day twist.

Sound effects for relaxation.

Religious leaders from around the globe are extending an invitation to discover the Season of Creation 2026: Living Water, calling communities worldwide to embark on a shared journey of faith and action. The Season runs from The Feast of Creation 1st September to The Feast of St Francis of Assisi on October 4th. The Feast of Creation and the extended season is supported by a huge movement of various denominations and free churches alike.

There's an old idea, one that St. Francis of Assisi made famous in his Canticle of the Sun, that the sun and moon aren't just distant objects lighting our days and nights — they're kin. Brother Sun. Sister Moon. Family, in a sense, part of the same created order we belong to.

It's a small shift in language, but it changes something. When the sun is just "the sun," it's background noise — something we barely register on our way to the car. When it's Brother Sun, it becomes a presence. Something worth noticing. Something worth thanking God for.

Ask the Animals

Job 12:7 puts it simply: ask the animals, and they will teach you. It's a strange invitation on the surface — what could a bird or a beast possibly have to teach a person? But Scripture keeps returning to this idea that creation itself is a kind of instructor, quietly demonstrating things about dependence, trust, and design that we're often too busy to notice on our own.

That raises a few honest questions worth sitting with:

What have I decided isn't worth my attention?

What's shaping me without my even realizing it?

What ordinary beauty have I stopped seeing because I've seen it so many times before?

What might change if I approached the created world as someone still learning from it, rather than someone simply in charge of it?

Sanctifying the Everyday

None of this requires a mountaintop or a dramatic sunset. It might just mean pausing on a walk, looking up at the moon on an ordinary Tuesday, or noticing the sun on your face for three seconds longer than usual. Gratitude for creation doesn't ask for grand gestures — it asks for attention.

Maybe that's the whole invitation: to stop treating the world as scenery, and start treating it as a gift.

Reflection inspired by themes of wonder, gratitude, and creation — prompted by Stillmere Contemplative Reflections Cards, Vol. 4: "Brother Sun, Sister Moon."

A wildflower doesn't apply for permission to bloom. It doesn't calculate whether the ground is fertile enough to be worth the effort, or whether anyone's walking by to see it. It just grows — toward light, toward water, toward whatever small mercy the season offers — and that's the whole of its work.

Jesus points to this in Matthew 6:28, and it's a strange thing to hold up as instruction. Not a parable with a moral to extract, not a lesson to file away — just an invitation to actually look at something that exists without justifying itself.

Most days don't leave much room for that kind of looking. There's a logic to how attention gets spent: on what needs doing, what needs answering, what needs fixing. It's not a wrong way to move through a day. But it does tend to flatten the world into a checklist, and things that can't be checked off — a colour, a shape, a bit of unplanned beauty — get filed under "later" and quietly forgotten.

Here's what's worth turning over, maybe on a walk or in a quiet moment before the day picks up speed:

Is there anything that delights you that serves no purpose at all?

What's grown too familiar to actually see anymore?

If perceived usefulness stopped being the filter, what would stand out?

What might be delighting God right now, unnoticed?

That last one is the one that stays with me. It suggests delight isn't a mood we're chasing — it's something already happening, on God's part, toward things we've stopped registering. The wildflower isn't waiting to be admired before it counts. It's already loved into existing at all.

Maybe the practice, then, isn't about finding something spectacular to marvel at. It's letting one small, unremarkable thing be enough — not because it earns the attention, but because it doesn't have to.

Reflection inspired by themes of delight, attention, and grace — prompted by Stillmere Contemplative Reflections Cards, Vol. 4: "Brother Sun, Sister Moon."

This Sunday, September 20, marks Peace Sunday — observed each year on the Sunday closest to the United Nations International Day of Peace. Some churches across the world will pause to reflect on what it means to follow the Prince of Peace in a world that so often speaks a different language: one of division, suspicion, and conflict.

The theme this year is simple but searching: a heart for peace.

It's worth sitting with the question honestly. What makes or breaks your heart for peace? Is it the news cycle? A strained relationship? Weariness with how loud and combative the world has become? 

Peace isn't just the absence of conflict out there — it starts as a condition of the heart in here.

Scripture doesn't ask us to manufacture peace on our own strength. Jesus called himself the Prince of Peace, and He said, 

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God" (Matthew 5:9). 

Peacemaking is active — it's a heart that has been shaped by God's love, justice, and nonviolence, and then turned outward toward a hurting world.

So this week, ask:

Where is God's heart for peace trying to reshape mine?

Who in my community reflects that heart for peace — and have I told them?

Where is one place, this week, I can choose peace instead of division?

Peace Sunday isn't just a service on the calendar. It's an invitation to let our hearts be retrained — to write a different story than the one the world keeps telling.

Some words from the Bible. KJV public domain.

Used with kind permission: https://sermonindex.net/md/copying-permissions/

Some verses from the Bible