Pondering Possibilities

 

 

 

 

 

"Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning."

— Gloria Steinem, American journalist and political activist

 

 

The fountain in the back yard is bubbling while I quietly survey the thriving plants and vibrant flowers.  As I sip my first cup of coffee, my attention is quickly attracted to a large butterfly.  The wing span is so wide I at first think it must be hummingbird, but the structure is way too delicate.  I grab my camera in hopes of capturing its delicate image, but it is way too fast for me.  So I just sit and watch as it flits to and fro around the yard.  Such grace and ease it has.  Its delicate ease and beauty is engraved in my memory.

 

By now I am enjoying my second cup of java and have been noticing a noisy bird in the tree.  It is a dull gray color with a bulging belly.  It is not pretty like a cardinal or a blue jay or robin and most definitely is not a song bird.  It just screeches.  I wonder of its importance.

 

I am startled by still a different butterfly.  This one is smaller than the first I saw, but it is colored like a zebra.  It stays longer on the flowers and has lovely movements, but not nearly as graceful as the first I saw.

 

A butterfly lives for about a month.  It goes through an extreme transformation accepting all of its stages and changing environments.  It is no surprise a butterfly is a symbol for transition and is associated with the soul.

 

Our lives are much longer than a butterfly, but we too go through transformation from fetus to adulthood.   As human beings we adapt to various environments and present in different structures mostly without grace.  We also move through many metamorphoses developing emotional and spiritual values. 

 

As a grand finale to my coffee hour, a hawk  soars in the sky.  He is not a Red Tail Hawk like those found in Illinois.  His wings are much more decorated as he spreads them to fly.

 

So in contemplation, I ponder simple thoughts.  Did the butterfly have any awareness of me  as I watched perched in my chair?  Did the screeching bird sense I was a stranger in his yard?  As the hawk glides up in the sky, does he know I am near by?  If the answer is no to each of these thoughts, would it also be true God's presence is unrecognized as each moment of  life slips by ...