The fog didn't keep the osprey away this morning.
He was back on his perch same as yesterday. Even though ospreys are primarily fish eaters, I'm beginning to suspect his presence is why I haven't seen many rabbits lately.
Much like other foggy mornings I've written about, the fog always has a tendency to both obscure and reveal and to set a tone--the osprey bowing its head in the fog could be in prayer or sleeping, while the osprey bowing its head in the sun is simply searching out prey below.
Today as I slipped through the Simpson Stoppers in the prayer labyrinth to photograph a spider web draped between two shrubs, I found that the moisture gathered on the webbing made every spider web apparent and for the first time I saw that the labyrinth was one big maze, one huge construction, one community of interlocking spider webs manned by different spiders. In fact, I was unsure how to get back out without breaking one of the webs.
But it was down by the water that again the fog set the tone. Floridians complain that we lack a change of seasons, that summer gives way to something less summer-like and then summer returns again. But I've noticed that leaves do change colors here, not the explosion of color that you see up north, but here and there. And this morning, I watched a yellowed leaf fall from overhead. I tracked it to the water and took its picture before the water swallowed it completely.
I'm reminded of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins entitled "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child." In the poem, the narrator addresses a girl named Margaret who is crying as she watches the leaves fall from the trees. He tells her two very important things. First, she won't pay attention to the leaves falling when she gets older. She'll recognize it as part of nature and she'll pass those leaves without a second thought. But also, he tells her that the reason she is crying now is not because she is mourning the leaf, but for the first time she understands that things do die and that she herself will one day die. "It is Margaret you mourn for," he tells her.
There is a grand majesty in the osprey though he is an agent of death. There is an unparalleled beauty in the spider web, though it too offers only death. And the water near the church, burbling with fish, is also the same water, that recycles a fallen leaf, breaking it down and turning it into something that once was a leaf but now is something else.
There is no pity in nature. There is no regret.
Those who say there is no God point to nature and say we are no different than any other part of nature, following instincts hardwired into our own nature.
But we are different, aren't we?
Because we do mourn. We do feel. We recognize beauty and are capable of great benevolence. We walk around spider webs, as I did this morning, instead of through them. We are curious. We explore. We always want to know more. We weep. We laugh. Sometimes we do both at the same time.
And we do all these things because of who we were created by and what we were created for.
We were made in God's image.
We may be a broken mirror, failing in the cracks, but sometimes we reflect back wholly and truly the wonder that is God.
He was back on his perch same as yesterday. Even though ospreys are primarily fish eaters, I'm beginning to suspect his presence is why I haven't seen many rabbits lately.
Much like other foggy mornings I've written about, the fog always has a tendency to both obscure and reveal and to set a tone--the osprey bowing its head in the fog could be in prayer or sleeping, while the osprey bowing its head in the sun is simply searching out prey below.
Today as I slipped through the Simpson Stoppers in the prayer labyrinth to photograph a spider web draped between two shrubs, I found that the moisture gathered on the webbing made every spider web apparent and for the first time I saw that the labyrinth was one big maze, one huge construction, one community of interlocking spider webs manned by different spiders. In fact, I was unsure how to get back out without breaking one of the webs.
But it was down by the water that again the fog set the tone. Floridians complain that we lack a change of seasons, that summer gives way to something less summer-like and then summer returns again. But I've noticed that leaves do change colors here, not the explosion of color that you see up north, but here and there. And this morning, I watched a yellowed leaf fall from overhead. I tracked it to the water and took its picture before the water swallowed it completely.
I'm reminded of a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins entitled "Spring and Fall: To a Young Child." In the poem, the narrator addresses a girl named Margaret who is crying as she watches the leaves fall from the trees. He tells her two very important things. First, she won't pay attention to the leaves falling when she gets older. She'll recognize it as part of nature and she'll pass those leaves without a second thought. But also, he tells her that the reason she is crying now is not because she is mourning the leaf, but for the first time she understands that things do die and that she herself will one day die. "It is Margaret you mourn for," he tells her.
There is a grand majesty in the osprey though he is an agent of death. There is an unparalleled beauty in the spider web, though it too offers only death. And the water near the church, burbling with fish, is also the same water, that recycles a fallen leaf, breaking it down and turning it into something that once was a leaf but now is something else.
There is no pity in nature. There is no regret.
Those who say there is no God point to nature and say we are no different than any other part of nature, following instincts hardwired into our own nature.
But we are different, aren't we?
Because we do mourn. We do feel. We recognize beauty and are capable of great benevolence. We walk around spider webs, as I did this morning, instead of through them. We are curious. We explore. We always want to know more. We weep. We laugh. Sometimes we do both at the same time.
And we do all these things because of who we were created by and what we were created for.
We were made in God's image.
We may be a broken mirror, failing in the cracks, but sometimes we reflect back wholly and truly the wonder that is God.
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