Something maybe better than miracles. And don’t miss the first comment that someone left:
Beautiful post and so timely for me as I am counting down the days to baby number 8. I’m sure you know how long those last days of pregnancy can seem. I was reminded me of this quote: “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
I have to sit down 
Funny…the exact same Chesterton comment immediately sprang too mind for me as well.
One particular line…
“It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
…has always struck a deep cord for me.
Yes, I must read more Chesterton! That passage is wonderful.
Hi Simcha. Lovely article, and I still can’t stop giggling over That Hat Lady’s comment.
I know – there’s something really satisfying about being so thoroughly misunderstood! So many people missed the point of “standing out vs. blending in” that it was definitely my fault — I should have written much more carefully. But whenever Hat Lady gets mad, I know I’ve done a good job.
I must confess, I’m starting to look forward to her comments, too.
And on a completely different topic, I just found this article and thought you’d get a kick out of it:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/q-why-do-we-wear-pants-a-horses/259696/
I love this passage! I just looked at that book last week at a store, but left it on the shelf to stay withing budget. Next time, it will be mine.
Thank you for this post. It is beautiful. It made me think with gratitude about the 4 ripe tomatoes I picked in the greenhouse, the first of the season and even the marestail that I pulled from around my garlic this week. It is a pre-historic plant, living and growing for millenia. There is a deep sense of joy that God gives us when we see the beauty and miracle of his creation. 🙂
Felt sorry for those commentators who entered into an technical discussion about whether weeds have souls and if weed babies are true miracles. They missed the invitation to joy that God offered them through you.
Ooh, if marestale is what I think it is, that is some fairly obscene looking foliage! Is that the one with the assembly of feathery females surrounding the big, stubby male?
Um…yes!.
Oh, I guess they’re not male and female, but the young plant bursts and spreads spores all over the place. Still.
Spores? That is why they end up everywhere, then. I’m looking forward to turning my next session of weeding into a Monty Python sketch. “Marestail? Eh, eh, Know what I mean. Marestail. Nudge nudge, wink, wink say no more!”
Actually, the uniqueness of each of us humans — many as we are — goes beyond the uniqueness of the individual nature that each of us has. I mean, consider the individual ovum and the individual spermatozoon from which you, reader, were somehow, at some moment, generated. From precisely those two cells resulted a unique genetic constitution: yours. But had there been twinning, two selves would have resulted with the same genetic constitution: had you been one of those “identical” twins, your genetic constitution would NOT have been unique. Yet you would have still been precisely yourself. Conclusion: your absolute identity — I don’t mean your psychological “identity” or persona, I mean simply your very self — is not determined by your genetic constitution, even if you’re not in fact a twin. What then does determine you to be precisely you? Or me precisely me? For although my bodily make-up is indeed extremely complex, it seems evident to me that I — my very self — am not any FEATURE or CHARACTER or MARK or NOTE or any ensemble of FACTORS: I’m quite simply just me. So then, Why do I and not someone else look out from behind these eyes of mine? Why are they MY eyes? For absolutely no reason in NATURE. So it appears evident to me that from that same individual ovum and that spermatozoon from which I somehow came, there could have come someone other than I; evident also, at the same stroke, that there is no necessity whatever for ME to have come from ANY union of sperm and ovum. In view of this, What reason can there be why precisely I have this individual nature — indeed What reason why precisely I exist at all, if not that my absolutely ineffable identity itself — and the intimate identity of you, and of every other human self — is the Creator’s expressly intended and utterly free “invention”?