Way back, in 2009, when I was working out my notice at Dibley, and actively seeking to discern where God might lead me to serve, I would sometimes look out of my office window and say to God, half joking, half serious,'can't you just write it on a cloud?'  I would joke to friends about looking at fluffy cumulus clouds, trying to work out if they looked like Wales or Scotland - or a shoe (Northampton), or a sheep/ram (Derby) or, well, you get the drift.

Today's reading invites us to think about the fact that the early Celtic saints did expect God to speak to them through the natural world.  Not by cosmic sign-writing but through 'portents', signs and wonders.  What we would simply dismiss as a bad storm might be understood by them as a sign of God's displeasure, or as a warning from God of impending trouble.  God using the natural world to speak to us.

A post-Enlightenment, scientific worldview makes it very difficult to entertain the possiblity that God would really somehow speak to me through strange weather patterns, let alone inscribe meaningful words on the side a cloud.  But maybe God does allow nature to speak to us of the consequences of our (collective) choices - plastic choked oceans, rising sea levels, species extinction... each of them warnings that all is not well.

Sometimes, though, even though I don't expect it to happen, I do half wish God could just make the 'answer' crystal clear rather than expecting me to use my brain, intuition and judgement.

Today's prayer:

Creator God, who interacts with your creation, may I see your hand and presence within the natural world around me.  May I also be open to you using the natural world to speak to me, and to send warnings and words to me so that I can know your guidance. Amen.