Exquisite and Precarious

"North Cascades"

9" x 12"

Watercolor study

On any given ordinary day, we get up, get ready for work, check cell phones and schedules, put the key in the ignition, and go about our daily lives per as usual.  All the while incredible works are going on without our thought or involvement.  The planets keep orbiting in precise alignment, our hearts beat, and all nature keeps up its intricate balance and activities.  

The Roman statesman and philosopher, Seneca, commented on all this phenomena:

"This swift revolution of the heavens, being ruled by eternal law, goes on unhindered,  producing so many things on land and sea, so many brilliant lights in the sky all shining in fixed array....Even the phenomena which seem irregular and undetermined---I mean showers and clouds, the stroke of crashing thunderbolts and the fires that belch from the riven peaks of mountains, tremors of the quaking ground....these, no matter how suddenly they occur, do not happen without reason."

(Scottsbluff, NE)

As huge and complicated as this universe may seem, it goes on with a regularity and order. When you stop to ponder this, it is truly amazing!  Biochemist Michael Denton observed:

"Earth's location, its size, its composition, its structure, its atmosphere, its temperature, its internal dynamics, and its many intricate cycles that are essential to life-----the carbon cycle, the oxygen cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the phosphorus cycle, the sulfur cycle, the calcium cycle, the sodium cycle, and so on----testify to the degree to which our planet is exquisitely and precariously balanced."

(Tetons, WY)

Don't let the mundane, everyday plod of life diminish your awe and wonder at the beautiful and magnificent created world in which we are privileged to spend another day.  Notice and keep on looking for those moments and details that can awaken you to the grandness and beauty of life!  

"For the LORD is God, 

and He created the heavens and earth

and put everything in place.

He made the world to be lived in,

not to be a place of empty chaos.

'I am the LORD,' He says,

'and there is no other.' "

---Isaiah 45:18

Here's poetic challenge to that end from a stanza in William Blake's Auguries of Innocence:

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower, 

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour.

Live bravely and beautifully!