Obe Daya Senehe Kiya

Telling of your loving mercy, the moon comes up,
telling of your everlasting glory, the sun comes up,
telling of your compassionate goodness, the gentle rain comes down,
bringing your cool shade, the beauty of the teaching

The poor, parched thirst of samsara’s wanderer, is it you who quench it?
the weary heat of the helpless, is it you who cool it?
for eyes that burn with tears, are you not the sandalwood that soothes?
the sweet, cool nectar of a kindly teaching, is it you who give it?

The bees that circle the cluster of flowers, is it you who send them?
washing over the rocks, is it you who make the ocean’s waves?
the young sun that sets the swaying trees adance, is it you who cast it?
the beauty of nature, do you not paint your own image upon the world?

This is a hymn of creation, and its lovely conviction is that everything in the natural world is quietly telling us about God. Its opening lines read the sky and weather as a kind of speech: “telling of your loving mercy, the moon comes up; telling of your everlasting glory, the sun comes up; telling of your compassionate goodness, the gentle rain comes down.” In the spirit of the Psalm that says “the heavens declare the glory of God,” the moon, sun and rain are not just phenomena but messengers, each announcing a different quality of their Maker.

The middle verse turns to God as the one who meets human need, and does so through a chain of gentle questions. “The poor, parched thirst of samsara’s wanderer, is it you who quench it? The weary heat of the helpless, is it you who cool it?” The questions expect the answer yes. One image is especially tender and rooted in Sri Lankan life, “for eyes that burn with tears, are you not the sandalwood that soothes?”, sandalwood being the cooling paste applied to bring relief. God is the balm for the burning eye.

The final verse widens the wonder to the whole living world and asks, of each beautiful thing, whether God is its author. “The bees that circle the cluster of flowers, is it you who send them? Washing over the rocks, is it you who make the ocean’s waves?” And it ends on the loveliest question of all, “the beauty of nature, do you not paint your own image upon the world?” What the listener is left with is a way of seeing, an invitation to look at the moon, the rain, the waves, the swaying trees and the bees at the flowers, and to recognize in all of it the fingerprints of a loving, merciful God who has, in effect, painted his own portrait across creation.