Saints

The pale flowers of the dogwood outside this window are saints. The little yellow flowers that nobody notices on the edge of that road are saints looking up into the face of God.

This leaf has its own texture and its own patterns of veins and its own holy shape, and the bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and strength.

The lakes hidden among the hills are saints, and the sea too is a saint who praises God without interruption in her majestic dance.

-Thomas Merton