The Force of Nature

It's very rare that the first thing I take a picture of at church in the morning is the only thing I wind up taking a picture of, but I was struck this morning by the almost sheer impossibility of what I was seeing.

At first it appears to be a flower that has fallen and been caught by a leaf, but when you look closer you can see that the flower has actually pierced the leaf.

How exactly does that happen?

Force equals mass times acceleration right?

How much mass does a flower have that it could do such a thing?

Some years ago a hurricane swept through our county and a particular twisting wind gust ripped the steeple off a beach side church, lifted it up, flipped it over and then drove it, cross down into the roof.

It was an amazing and horrific sight.  This--this was the sheer power of nature.

But proportionally, how much did it take to drive this flower into this leaf?

It makes me think about our own vulnerabilities.  We are so fragile.  We know that.  We know how fragile humanity is, how the things we build can be taken and stripped from us in a second.

But we are not alone in the natural world.

The whole of creation is just as vulnerable.

It makes me think we should step more softly.