(Eggstra)Ordinary!
Galapagos swallow-tail gull chick
I got to experience the Galapagos last week – exploring land and sea! Galapagos sea lions and fur seals are the only endemic mammals in that region. Consequently, what dominates the islands are eggs. Bird eggs. Iguana eggs. Turtle and tortoise eggs. Fish eggs. And so my contemplation turned to what is obvious yet often goes without realization, just how eggstra-ordinary an egg is.
The egg contains everything it needs to grow a creature. A shell for protection and nutrition from its gooey contents surround an embryo with cells that divide and form into an organ, vessels, a leg. Maybe a wing or fin. The growing and changing continues until it reaches a point at which it “knows” to stop. In other words, it doesn’t become full grown in there. Nor, does what is supposed to be a bird become a tortoise. It contains its own blueprint for when to start growing, what to grow into, when to stop … when to chip its way out. Birds are covered in fluffy down that gives way to feathers. Even the feathers know where they belong – one kind for the wing, another for the chest, another for the tail. All this growing and shaping into its designed purpose to fly or swim just…happens. Of course there is scientific explanation for how this occurs. But considering that it happens at all leaves me awe-struck.
The ordinary is all around us. And its mystery is waiting to burst forth and be realized. Not because it gives me any answers but just to marvel at the mystery itself. To be caught by the extra in the ordinary – the crunchy sound walking on snow, crocuses popping up their heads to herald the coming of spring, that baby birds learn how to fly, the sprawling milky way in a limitless dark sky. That I am even here to witness the mystery.
Have you gone to the sea’s sources,
Walked in the chamber of the deep?
Have death’s gates been revealed to you;
can you see the gates of deep darkness?
Have you surveyed earth’s expanses?
Tell me if you know everything about it.
Job 38:16-19
I hope the extra in the ordinary might find you awe-struck this week.
In this together….