CathNews New Zealand

I admit I am one of those people who divide God’s world according to my notions of comfort.

My personal preference is transferred so that I see some things as good and some as not good.

Monarch butterflies are lovely, white butterflies are ugly. I admire a porpoise but not a shark.

In my garden, flowers are good, weeds are bad.

I don’t pause to think that the difference between a weed and a flower is a judgement.

Right now, I could fill a page with the goodies and baddies defined by convenience, which is okay, I suppose, as long as I recognise what I am doing.

The judgment belongs with me and not the object.

Sometimes, I find it necessary to go beyond personal convenience, and I am sure we all do this from time to time.

We look at something as it is in itself.

I think of this as a form of prayer because it always brings me to God.

It’s all about seeing beauty beyond prejudice, and in that beauty, seeing the Creator.

When we were children, and the world was new, we lived closer to the ground; we found wonder everywhere.

The convolvulus plant was not a weed. We pressed the base of the white flowers, chanting, “Grandfather, grandfather, pop out of bed,” and we watched the white flower leap into the air.

We collected bugs and worms in a jar, not because we were callous, but because we thought they were beautiful, and we wanted to possess them.

But then we grew, the earth was no longer close and we lost sight of that original beauty.

The world became something to be used.

But we can recapture the freshness of child vision when we go past judgmental thinking.

The heart is moved by the shining blue on the body of a blowfly, and the gauzy wings that hum in flight. No man-made flying machine has such speed and grace of movement.

In a city street, a dandelion blooms above a crack in the pavement.

The flower is a plate of yellow petals layered on a stem with two strong leaves, all wider than the crack that conceals the roots.

How did a seed get there? Blown by the wind? Guided by something beyond our perception?

The snail in the garden is also a miracle. How does this small boneless body create the fine structure of its shell?

Where and how does it get the knowledge?

Is there some blueprint programmed in it?

Programmed by whom?

When I look closely and without judgement at something in nature, I become lost in the ineffable I call God.

My heart seems to expand and there is a feeling of sweetness that I can’t describe.

For a few seconds, I have a sense of connection with everything on earth.

I call this feeling the prayer of the sweet wonder.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

 

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