A Splendid One

All of a sudden it seemed like I was with Henry David Thoreau at Walden's Pond.  Actually, I was sitting at the back of the house in the golf cart watching the sun make its end-of-the-day plunge.  What created the Walden's Pond moment was the appearance of  a mini white tornado appearing before me as hundreds of small white bugs came in a swirling vortex of energy.  And right behind them came what I have learned to call mosquito hawks, large slender flying bugs with a huge wing span.  Into that vortex of white bugs flew these mosquito hawks like jets attacking defenseless swarms of bombers.  In and out they went catching the smaller bugs as they flew.  As I watched the air battle, I was reminded of Thoreau as he watched  "The Battle of the Ants."  In chapter twelve he wrote about watching a life and death struggle between the black ants and the red ants.  I sat there amazed having never witnessed such a thing in the insect world. 

While some of the bugs did not fare too well, it caused me to experience a moment of wonder at the created order God has made.  One of Thomas Hardy's character likens the stars to the apples on the tree, some blighted and some splendid.  When questioned by her younger brother, Tess, tells him that ours is a blighted one.  Actually, Hardy and his character, Tess, had it wrong.  It is splendid one, this world in which we live.

"The Battle of the Bugs" witnessed the other evening convinced me again of what a splendid orderly creation is entrusted to us by the Creator.  When it seems that there is nothing new to see, splendor and wonder break out anew in the most unlikely ways.  It is simply unfortunate that is so hard for us to see the glory and the beauty of this splendid world in which we live.