Every Square Inch (iii) – Today’s Mystery

*I was weeding the flowerbeds the other day. I took along my camera. Here’s a ‘square inch’ of God’s creation that I found.

*****

One day I spied … a creature
Exploring a rocky corner
Not one day 
Not two days
But many days of exploring
… Searching for what?
Searching the rocks for
A bite to eat?
A place to live?
A mate?
… All the while darting all around? How?
This creature has wings
Four wings
Amber wings
Four, big Amber wings
… What about the rest of it?
This creature’s body
Has three sections - head, thorax, abdomen
It’s two inches long, black, yellow, red
With one wicked looking stinger
… Anything else?
Only the female
Lays eggs
Digs the burrow
Has a stinger to paralyze prey
… Prey, what prey? Pray tell?
Ah, the prey! 
Here’s where we get the clue
It will help us name this very interesting insect
This large, flying wasp of a creature
In search of a
… cicada …
To nourish newly hatched eggs
Its name? 
Cicada Killer
Doing what it was created to do
Today’s gift

Every Square Inch (i)

I thought it might be a good idea to include a note about the “square inch” tag that I’ve put on some of my posts.

The phrase comes from a longer quote by Abraham Kuyper, a Dutch theologian. He said, “There is not a square inch in the whole’ domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”

Much has been written about the richness of Kuyper’s intended meaning in that quote. Certainly, its meaning goes far beyond the simple ideas I present in my posts. There’s more to ‘… the whole domain of our human existence…’  than spiders, flowers and other things in my backyard.

I use the ‘every square inch’ tag because I believe that ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and that “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it,” (every square inch of it) So, I do my best in my posts to reflect the beauty, wonder, and delight evident in God’s awesome Creation.

Sometimes it’s the little things that make us sit up and take notice, that delight us, that make us smile or even laugh. Sometimes it’s the little things, along with the big ones that make us wonder – what, why, how, who? Sometimes, if we’re paying attention, those things will even point us to the Creator himself.

I don’t think Kuyper had spiders on his mind when talking about square inches. But I think he would agree that for even the smallest, the most ordinary, the least, Christ cries out, “Mine!”

The Weather

There’s been a lot of talk about the weather these days. From the west coast to the east and everywhere in between it’s been weather! weather! weather!

Realizing there’s nothing I can do about it, today, I decided rather than talk about the weather it was time to explore some of the effects of the weather. 

So, on this very cold, sunny, cloudless day, with a nearby creek swollen by recent rains, I risked frozen fingers to try the ‘five shot’ challenge. Could I take five photos worthy of posting in the blog?

Here’s what I came up with…

Today’s gift.

Around the Corner

The trail I walk on just about every morning is a mostly flat meandering path following a creek.  There are woods, fields and marshes that change with the seasons.  Today’s flowers are different from a month ago. Yet day by day things pretty much remain the same.

Sometimes unexpected things come along that surprise and delight.  Like this morning.  I was walking along, turning a corner that bends the path into a swampy area, when I met this curious traveler. 

We stood facing each other for a few minutes, long enough for me to get out my phone and snap a few pictures.  Delightful.

Today, I turned a corner that I’ve walked hundreds of times seeing the same scene almost every time, until today. A surprise.  A gift.  And then more.

So it is with life.  We travel in our day-to-day routines.  We work. We play. We struggle. We enjoy.  We fret.

We worry about what’s next, what’s around the next corner.  It’s impossible to tell.  Yet the One who created fawns and flowers walks with us as we travel our straight and crooked paths.  He tells us there’s no need to worry. 

So today, praise God who has all our corners, beginning to end, in view. Praise the one who reminds us “Do not be afraid… you are mine.”  Isaiah 43:1  Today’s gift.

“This is my Father’s world… O let me not forget…”

It’s January – Unexpected Delight

My walk was about to end. Thankfully so.  For over an hour, the morning’s brisk air poked at my cold, rosy cheeks and as I wandered along the path, I wondered, “What am I doing here?”  Brrrr…  

My car waiting in the parking lot offered the promise of warmth. The end was in sight.  But, then, I stopped. A flurry of activity caught my eye. In the middle of a scrubby bit of brush that was all twigs and a few berries clinging to bare branches there were … Robins!

Really?  Robins in Michigan, in January?  In the middle of a short burst of snowflakes, a half dozen robins, feathers fluffed to insulate against the winter cold, plucked frozen berries from the branches for their breakfast.

Robins!  Imagine that!  I thought I had seen my last robin months ago.  Yet there they were in the middle of January, no less.  Is spring just around the corner?  Why did they come back so soon?

Then I realized that they never left.  Even though I missed them and thought they were gone, they’ve been around all along.

What was I doing here? Without realizing, walking this path, I was opening myself up to the delights of God’s world. In spite of the blustery January morning, this week’s unexpected delight came in the form of ones who were gone, at least in my mind, yet never left.  Today’s delightful gift.

This photo was not taken in January. I could well have been the same bit of shrubbery. It’s probably not the same robin. But who knows. 🙂