Leaps

“All things bright and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful,

The Lord God made them all.”

 

The last couple of weeks have brought new baby goats so I’ve been spending more time in the pasture watching them and trying to get some good pictures.  In this pasture the goats get their water from a small pond covered in lily pads.  From a distance the pond looks like a big puddle of dead water.  Looks can be deceiving.

The pond is anything but dead water. It looks as if raindrops are always falling softly from the piece of sky directly overhead.   Upon closer inspection the undulations seem to generate from beneath the surface, a result of teeming life in the murky depths.   The surface of the water is never still for the minnows, turtles, frogs, and fish moving below, and the water bugs above.  Dragonflies abound, lighting on one lily pad, and then another as if walking through a garden on stepping stones.  Iridescent insects with names I do not know glimmer in the sunlight as they skate across the water, some becoming food for the creatures underneath.  Crawfish fortresses of thick mud stand tall in the rivulets that flow into the top side of the pond and out the bottom. 

I am mostly intrigued by the frogs.  Step outside any door of my house and you can’t help but hear them.  Step a little closer to the water’s edge and the startled frogs will jump in the pond, letting off a frightened squeak as they leap.  One step closer still and they will hush, as if to hide from your presence.  But I know they are there, I just can’t see the darned things.

I hear the plunk as they jump into the water upon my approach.  I see the water ripple on the surface, and the stems of the lilies sway from their movement, but I can’t see the frogs!  I went out today with a pair of binoculars to spy them before they spied me.  Although they were vocal they were still elusive even under my magnified gaze.

The goats pay me little attention.  In the mornings I go out in my long blue floral robe with a cup of coffee in my hand.  I try to miss the school bus as it passes, but I’m not always so lucky.  The goats get up from their hay beds and quietly walk in the opposite direction.  What are they trying to tell me?

I’m sure they don’t understand why, after all this time, I want to share the ground on their side of the fence.  The babies run from my grasp, and the others start at the sound of my camera shutter’s action.  They tolerate me because one does not bite the hands that feed.  

It’s just that I am so attracted by the life that exists on the other side of the fence.  The wild, fearless jumps of the kids are like the cartwheels of my youth.  The bleats of the mothers when it is feeding time confirm an affection for their offspring even when I think they could care less about them; motherly love in all its confusion.  The ripples in the pond remind me there is life in places I cannot see. I do not see, yet I believe. That's the foundation of faith, yes? 

Life, all signs of it, is proof enough to me that there is a Creator of it all, who set the world in perfect motion and did not let one detail go untouched.