Sitting on the screened-in deck, I hear a woodpecker tapping away. There he is! Directly in front of me, about 30 yards to the east, intermittently hammering its beak into a - what? - a birch tree?
A squirrel bounces from a pile of leaves to a fallen limb. A cardinal flies off on a mission. A smaller bird flits from tree to tree. A dragonfly finds its way back to the shore of the lake.
And the sounds!
In addition to the tapping of the woodpecker, there is a symphony of chirps, tweets, whistles, honks, and quacks. The leaves are rustling, both on the ground and in the trees.
A strong breeze wakes up and swoops through the woods as if to say, "Here you go, gang! Something fresh for your morning!"
So much life!
And this is just in the two or three acres I can physically see. There's a whole world of this going on "out there."
It's like birds. I'm aware of a fairly limited list of bird species. Let's see...eagles, hawks, condors, vultures, woodpeckers, robins, sparrows, cardinals, bluejays, hummingbirds, crows, and owls. Twelve kinds of birds. That's pretty varied. But wait. What about ducks, geese, pelicans, penguins, peacocks, ostriches, emus, falcons, finches, and pheasants?
What about the fact that there are over 11,000 different kinds of birds?
So much life!
And don't get me started on insects or bacteria. That's a whole other miniature universe.
So much life!
And humans account for such an invisibly small slice of the pie.
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Truth is...Psalm 8:4: What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
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