August 2025

Towering redwoods. Tiny butterflies. Our world is filled with natural wonders that amaze, delight, and inspire.

We share our reflections, hoping to spark your own.

This is one of those days when I need to escape. It’s 100+ degrees outside in the Texas heat, people all over the world are fighting each other, and I’m bored with all that. Let’s see… Oh! I need a return trip to my dream place, Iceland!

Iceland is about the size of the state of Virginia, but it is an enormous natural wonder: its geological features, unique ecosystem, and cultural history.

Wonder # 1. It’s the only place I know of where you can walk into a gorge between two tectonic plates – Eurasian and North American plates – and place a hand on both cliffs at the same time. This natural wonder is an experience not unlike walking into one of the magnificent cathedrals in Europe and being awed by its architecture.

Wonder # 2. You don’t have to be a geologist to fall in love with glacial lakes, fjords, and geysers. You can be fascinated by the geothermal lands where the heat of the earth comes to the surface, and you can swim in the clear, warm waters. You can see greenhouses, warmed by tubes of natural hot water, where they grow vegetables year-round.

Wonder # 3. Iceland’s cultural history goes back almost 1000 years when it was explored by Norwegian Vikings and later by Celtic and Norse settlers. Some say Irish monks predated the Vikings. Iceland now is a republic and takes pride in its long history of parliamentary government. The people met to create laws, resolve disputes, and shape the early democratic traditions that define the nation's history, a natural wonder in itself.

Now, this is the reason to go back to Iceland, to refresh my imagination as to how wonderful and peaceful a place can be – a natural wonder.

Did I fail to mention the two best natural wonders of Iceland? The aurora borealis that splashes brilliant solar color all over and around you? And the beloved Icelandic ‘pylsa’ hot dog?

Just being fascinated by the cool air, natural wonders, and a culturally peaceful place, I feel better already. I invite you to take some time to refresh -- body, mind, and spirit. Follow these links to view Iceland and its wonders: 

Iceland's best natural wonders - Lonely Planet

Guides and Inspiration

and don't miss the Natural Wonders video at the bottom.

--Jan

At the end of Charles Wesley’s great hymn, “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling,” he leaves us almost breathless, “lost in wonder, love, and praise.” But Wesley’s hymn suggests such awe will not occur “till in heaven we take our place.”

What about this-worldly wonder? I certainly have felt awe at the sight of majestic mountains, thundering waterfalls, even the delicate dance of a hovering hummingbird. How about you?

Jan and I watched part of the U.S. gymnastics championship last weekend. There were moments when my jaw literally dropped at the wonders the human body can perform. Created by a loving God, who tenderly shaped our first ancestors from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2), I am repeatedly dazzled by the performance of human bodies, by the wondrous skills of ballerinas or basketball players.

The natural world – also known as God’s creation – is filled with wonder. Flowers. Sunsets. Roaring surf crashing against the shore. My father was an outdoorsman, a hunter, fisher and farmer. “I knew there was a God long before I became a Christian,” he told me once.

“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork” (Ps. 19:1). Like the psalmist, like so many others, Dad had sensed the grandeur of God from the wonderful world God created.

In his recent book, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul, John Philip Newell describes how the early environmentalist John Muir saw all of creation as part of God’s revelation: “The winds, the waters, the springs, [Muir] says, are all ‘words of God.’ …. Every mountain invites us to awaken to the divine.”*

May we all pay attention to the wonders of creation. May we all awaken to the divine, and even now, here on earth, find ourselves “lost in wonder, love, and praise.”

--Bill

*p. 151.

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