This is the Gospel of nature, and in this Gospel of nature you will find that the most ‘uninteresting’ bits and pieces of nature, bear the same magnificence and significance - and the full mark of divinity as the snow covered Himalayan Mountains, or the graceful cheetah in full speed. Looked at carefully then, the rough uneven surfaced stone, the clumsy crawling insect, or the little water puddle on the mountain top is as complicated in design and creation as any of the Creator’s other footprints. Indeed the little water puddle or the tiny mountain stream reflects light off its surface with no less luminosity as the big clear water mountain lake. This is the Gospel of nature – sameness and equality even though different, imposing and significant even though varying of size. God reveals himself in nature, his true unedited Gospel, for here there was no King or Bishop to decide which books to include and to exclude, or how brutal the editing should be – for as in most of life, in Religion too man has through the ages modeled God not on who God is, but on what man’s perception of God is – almost entirely based on his own selfish needs.

The Gospel of nature is in the magnificent mountain, in the multi-coloured flower covered valley, in the meandering river and the still brooks, in the birds in full song, the flowers in full bloom, in the graceful glide of the butterfly, in the thunderous roaring waves, in the song of the gushing wind, and in the graceful and elegant movement of a single blade of grass. Quite simply, if one wants to find God, all one has to do is to look about the book called the Gospel of Nature. And nowhere is this gospel so profoundly narrated, so eloquently described, and so simply presented as on the mountain; in all its majesty, with its imposing stature, with stones hanging impossibly in gravity defying positions, pebbles and other stones so liberally scattered on the mountain floor, with a surface so adorned in flower, so rich in bird life and other flying things of beauty, impressed with crawling insects and other creatures, all contributing to a mosaic of colour and beauty that would make Solomon in all his splendor look like a beggar. Engulfed by this beauty, silence is automatic.

Thus, the quite and serenity of the mountain top leads one spontaneously to silence, and in the integrity that silence offers, in the beauty that silence affords, and in the illumination that silence provides, one finds God and gets to understand what Jesus the Christ meant when he said, “The Kingdom of God is within You”.

The mountain is a place, all at once, of loneliness and togetherness with all. It is all at once a place of promise and of pardon, of teaching and healing, of revelation and redemption, of suffering and sacrifice, of temptation and transformation. The mountain is the ultimate sanctuary. The mountain is all of this and more. My fervent wish for South Africans going into 2010 (besides winning the World Cup Soccer tournament) is that we should make the work place, our relationships and the other numerous ventures we are involved in, our allegorical mountains, where we constantly seek to ascent to true illumination, harmony, joy, love and peace profound. If we do, we will imbue all our ventures with ethical conduct, with morality and spirituality. We will be one with the Divine.

Last year, after an exhausting climb; sitting atop Table Mountain with some friends, we watched, awestruck as the sun burst through the clouds, creating a most wonderful and amazing sight to behold. As we bathed literally and figuratively in the suns rays, and as we experienced the grandeur and splendour in the glorious orgasm of colour and light, as we took in the delightful sights, a friend exclaimed, ‘Amen’. He understood what Ibn Al-Arabi had seen. The fingerprint of God is in everything. He had partaken of the Gospel of Nature. No further words were necessary.

Skhumbuzo Ngozwana
Bellville, Cape Town
December 2009.