Have you ever heard of a talking mountain? Being a literally minded person, this was the thought that came into my mind at a recent service at our local church. Many of the Christian women in our village had got together for the Women's World Day of Prayer, and were using the thoughts and prayers prepared this year by women in South Africa. It was a good service - a small group from each church, not above thirty altogether on a freezing night in March, but united in acknowledging God's love and care and the needs of our world. There is disease, poverty, violence, persecution, false teaching....In the face of this, we need to look to God's parental care and protection, and not be afraid to speak. But this state of things also reminds us of the signs of the times referred to in Luke 21.5.. 19. In these last days there is all the more reason to look to our Almighty Creator.

Which is where the talking mountain comes in. I looked it up afterwards in Psalm 148. In that psalm all the forces of nature are urged to Praise the Lord' as if they could speak. I take it the thought is that we human beings should consider all the wonders of creation,and praise God on account of them. Or is it really possible for inanimate things to find a voice, and in their exultant existence to show the joy of His creative work? Mountains, hills, orchards, forests, wild animals, farm animals, snakes or birds (Psalm 148.9,10)?

There is a similar theme to be found in the apocryphal part of the book of Daniel, where in what some call the `Benedicite', or the 'Song of the Three Young Men' Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego sing to God out of the fiery furnace in which He has protected them. Sun and moon - cold and heat - mountains and hills - everything that grows on earth.... are all exhorted to "bless the Lord, give glory and eternal praise to him" (Jerusalem Bible, Daniel 3.51-90). And at the end it all comes down to us, to praise God for what He has done. "All you who worship him, bless the God of gods, praise him and give him thanks, for his love is everlasting" (v.90).

So that somewhat idiosyncratic prayer from South Africa in the Women's World Day service, with its speaking mountain, was perhaps not so strange after all. What do you think? Here it is.

'We invite you to join us in this South African prayer of praise "All works of God - praise the Lord and bless His name."'

P.S. Psalm 19 refers to the heavens declaring the glory of God without using words: "no utterance at all, no speech, no sound that anyone can hear - yet their voice goes out through all the earth and their message to the ends of the world" (Psalm 19.1-4 JB).

GC