Contemplate the Wonder

Summertime is a good time to contemplate the wonder of God. God has beeen trying to teach me for a long time to still my mind, to be in the moments, to joy in the wonder of life and of His creation. My mind tends to be in another place from where my body is; depressing rememberings of the past or fearful imaginings of the future; battling negative thoughts and cruel voices.

But now it's summer and I'm going to make a conscious effort to "stop and smell the roses". To delight in the pink, purple, and blue hyacinths in my backyard; to marvel at the bird's nest in the red geraniums on my balcony; to watch the butterflies dancing across my butterfly bush. In fact, I resolve to spend some time studying those butterflies.

To me, nothing in all creation more demonstrates the wonder of God than the butterfly. They are beautiful, delicate creatures that display God's handiwork in the intricate paintings of their wings. Their colors and patterns are a masterpiece, every one of them. I've never seen a butterfly that didn't take my breath away with its beauty. To think that they started out as the odd and lowly caterpillar, meandering along on the lowest places of the earth. What an amazing marvel of God's ingenuity! In one of the most mind-boggling acts of nature, that unfortunate little caterpillar disappears for awhile, tunneling itself into a dark cocoon, emerging only after much struggle and work, transformed into a glorious butterfly.

Ah, the wonder of God! Brennan Manning in his book "The Ragamuffin Gospel" says "By and large, our world has lost its sense of wonder. We have grown up. We no longer catch our breath at the sight of a rainbow or the scent of a rose, as we once did. We have grown bigger and everything else smaller, less impressive. We get blase' and worldly-wise and sophisticated. We no longer run our fingers through the water, no longer shout at the stars or make faces at the moon". Maybe we should just spend some time this summer contemplating the butterfly if we want to experience the wonder of God.