"El Shaddai, El Shaddai, El Elyon na Adonai; age to age you're still the same by the power of the name. El Shaddai, El Shaddai, Erkahmka na Adonai; we will praise and lift you high, El Shaddai." ~Michael Card & John Thompson

While visiting Seattle and parts of Oregon over the last few days, we were given the gift of glimpsing spring. Primroses, daffodils, tulips and even magnolia trees were sending forth their blossoms of hope on a colorless world. As we flew back to Minnesota last night, we recognized the shift in how the Midwestern air felt and smelled. Though no color is yet visible, the promise of spring rode on the wind.

I am carrying in my memory the sight of mountain and ocean. As we hiked the Oregon coast, flanked by the power of rock and tree on our left and the movement of sea on our right. Out among the waves, giant sea stacks of rock, looking like prehistoric sea monsters, rose majestically along the ever-changing beach. People walking the beach were drawn to them, trying to make their way to the rock beacons, while all the time the sea pushed them back toward land.

As I walked the beach I was reminded of how many people talk of their own spiritual landscape, that place where they feel a deep sense of home, a sense of the Sacred. Many people will speak of a 'need' to get to the water. I often hear those who have a relationship with Lake Superior speak of 'just needing to get to the Lake' to sort out some problem, to get grounded. I have also heard people speak of needing the mountains, to feel held and surrounded by the power of rock, evergreen and earth that helps them claim their spiritual center.

Walking the Oregon beach, I was struck with having it all……water, wave, rock, earth, trees. The grounding of earth, the connection with water that makes up the majority of our bodies, all held by the power of mountain peaks.The scriptures are filled with images of water that nurtures and saves humanity. El Shaddai, a name used for God in the Hebrew scriptures, can mean both 'God of the mountain' and 'God of breast & womb'. Standing surrounded, held, by the power of these foundations of Creation, it would have been difficult to deny the presence of the Holy, of El Shaddai.

As we walk into the final days of this Holy Week, may we each be held by the spiritual landscape that nurtures, sustains and saves. May there be moments when we can find the spiritual landscape that we call home, whether literally or in our imagination. May we each be surrounded by the presence of El Shaddai, that One who is always making all things new.