The Burning Bush

In the Book of Exodus, Moses is tending a flock near Mount Horeb when he notices something strange.

A bush is burning.

Yet it is not consumed.

Moses could have continued walking.

Instead, he says:

“I will turn aside and see.”

And only then does the story unfold.

He approaches.

A voice calls his name.

Moses answers:

“Here I am.”

He is told to remove his sandals.

The ground beneath him is holy.

We often remember the fire.

But perhaps there is something equally beautiful in the turning aside.

Moses was doing something ordinary.

Working.

Walking.

Looking after animals.

Then something caught his attention.

And he stopped.

Our lives are also filled with small burning bushes.

A child saying something while we are looking at our phone.

A strange feeling in the body before an argument.

The expression on someone’s face.

A tree moving in the wind.

A thought that keeps returning.

The silence after someone speaks.

Most of the time, we keep walking.

There is another task.

Another message.

Another place to be.

Awareness begins very simply:

Something is happening.

And I notice.

Not everything we notice carries a message.

Not every coincidence is a sign.

We do not need to make the ordinary mysterious.

But neither do we need to rush past it.

Sometimes the remarkable thing is not what appears before us.

It is that, for once,

we turned aside to actually see it.

And perhaps “holy ground” need not always be somewhere far away.

Perhaps it is simply the ground beneath our feet—

when we are fully there.