By T.J. Ray
Columnist
“Earth is a miracle. Zooming around our sun at 67,000 mph – while
our solar system moves throughout our galaxy and the galaxy itself
spins across the heavens at supersonic speeds – my coffee cup sits
steadily beside my laptop with nary a ripple in the liquid. No
turbulence. How does the Almighty God manage this? I am in awe.”
Try as I would, I could not find who originally wrote this, but I certainly
like the sentiment and agree fully with it. Sometimes hunting birds
with my camera, I find ample proof of that super power.
The other day I watched an osprey dive from way up to snag a fish in
the reservoir. Things happened in that capture unbeknownst to me.
The osprey has four “toes” on each foot, one facing forward/the other
three facing to the back. Just as he hits the water, the left forward one
rotates backward to give him better grip on lunch. Hitting the water,
he also closes his nostrils.
Spring will be here soon, which means hummers will be coming for
their nectar. Watching a hummingbird reveals another little miracle. If
it gets too close to a flower, it reverses its wings and flies backward.
So far as I know, he’s the only bird that can do this.
That those same little wings are able to carry him across the Gulf of
Mexico surely rates as a miracle.
Zoos and flower gardens fascinate me. To see a blossom that came
from a little black seed. To see a Monarch flutter by that came from
an ugly caterpillar. To watch a newborn giraffe drop fourteen feet from
its mother’s body unhurt. To witness a turtle couple in the act of
creating another turtle. To witness a spider gradually enclose a
butterfly in a gossamer web for later feasting. These, dear hearts, are
miracles.

As I’ve grown up and learned a little about our world, my confusion
and my wonder have increased. Remember that book that begins “In
the beginning”? And goes on to tell us all creation took seven days?
Is it really possible that some power could do that? But then along
come scientists with their fossils and tell about a process that took
billions and billions of years of work before the first human walked.
And with them come the stargazers, the astronomers, who point their
telescopes and radio beacons at space, and then talk about billions of
years. Did the Big Bang occur 13.7 billion years ago? And
what was there to go Bang?
And as human brains are wont to do, sometimes somebody will pose
a really tough puzzle: What was before the beginning? And that’s the
moment when we turn to simply observing miracles and revealing that
somehow they all came about.
Words have a pointed way of synthesizing our curiosity and stifling our
questions momentarily: In the words of a favorite poet, Robert Frost:
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life — it
goes on.