The Konza

Today I walked in the Flint Hills of Kansas. It's become a ritual for me. I go either to the Tallgrass National Preserve or the Konza Prairie Trail (as today) regularly. Excellent hiking should contain elevation gain, a view, significant expenditure of energy, a bracing encounter with nature itself, beauty, and a sense of adventure. There are few places in the central Midwest where I found all of this. The Konza, however, qualifies.

And today it was in all of its glory. This, I think, was why God made these hills. The temperature on this December 29th was near 50. Not a cloud in the sky. Deep blue sky. The tallgrasses were golden, waist high, tinged with red as we looked across seas of them. I was with some of my favorite people. The white and red and burr oak trees were gnarled and dark, artistically set against the backdrop of the golden grass and blue sky. It was perfect; my body worked as it is supposed to. This is why I hike, and I still haven't come down from the joy I felt in my bones.

There. That's all. I just needed someone to tell about it. It was, today, just as the Scriptures say:

"Day to day pours out speech (referring to creation, when it is doing what it was made to do), and night to night reveals knowledge." Psalm 19:2

It was as one of the Puritans said:

"Praise waiteth for Thee, and to render it is my noblest exercise; this is Thy due from all Thy creatures, for all Thy works display Thy attributes and fulfill Thy designs; the sea, the dry land, winter cold, summer heat, morning light, evening shade are full of Thee, and Thou givest me them richly to enjoy. . . All Thy works praise Thee and Thy saints bless Thee." ("God-Honoured" in The Valley of Vision)

That's my part, our part. To bless Him consciously and from the heart as His creation praises Him by simply living out their part. Like the Konza did today.