The security lights on the porch switched on the other night, and I peered anxiously through the window, expecting to see an intruder. Turns out I was exactly right — but the prowler didn’t scare me a bit.
You see, this fellow was rather rotund with a white face, whiskers and a pointed snout — and he stopped instantly in his tracks as he met my gaze. Then, the moment I looked away, Mr. Possum waddled off, perhaps headed to the creek for a drink.
Although often mistaken for rats, possums are in fact marsupials — carrying their young in pouches like their rather humorous-looking cousins, the kangaroos.
I picture possums and kangaroos and other fuzzy creatures when reading the psalm that says, “Give praise to the Lord from out of the earth … . Fire and hail, snow and ice … . Savage beasts and all you cattle, crawling things and all you winged birds.”
To me, Genesis portrays God as the quintessential artist, shaping the world from his imagination because — as any artist can attest — you can’t create something without picturing it first.
“Let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures,” God said, “cattle, creeping things, and wild animals of all kinds.”
And as British writer G.K. Chesterton pointed out in “Orthodoxy,” some of God’s beloved beasts are downright unlikely looking.
“It is one thing to describe an interview with a … griffin, a creature who does not exist,” he noted. “It is another thing to discover that the rhinoceros does exist and then take pleasure in the fact that he looks as if he didn’t.”
For many years, my husband and I thrilled when flocks of sandhill cranes migrated across the Georgia skies — and we responded to their distant cries by running outside to behold their celestial pilgrimage. I was in Florida recently — and my cousin called excitedly from the window, “Oh, wow, sandhill cranes!”— so I rushed outside and looked skyward.
“I don’t see any,” I said disappointedly.
Then someone directed my gaze to the lawn, where two large, long-necked, long-legged birds were nonchalantly strutting along.
I was struck with awe, since I’d never seen the birds up close before — and later I reflected that a child glimpsing a hippo or giraffe — or even a possum — for the first time might feel equal wonder.
And what about ordinary creatures like a cat that rumbles when petted? A chipmunk that stashes nuts in its cheek pouch? A parrot that can talk?
Poet Gerard Manley Hopkins aptly described nature as “charged with the grandeur of God.” And he wrote that the Holy Ghost watches over our world “with warm breast and … bright wings.”
God’s canvas is painted with birds and beasts of every hue and size. And as a new year unfolds, my prayer is that we take time to glimpse the wonders — and praise him for his artistry.
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