Wide Eyed Wonder

Has your breath ever been stolen by the beauty of creation. Has God played the thief with your oxygen as you caught a glimpse of moonlight through the branches, or witnessed the sun burn colored carnage into the sky? Ever wanted to relate that experience, but adjectives and nouns seem to fail?

I've felt that way. I'm sure you have seen your frozen breath stolen away, but had no wish for it to return. The experience is a holy one, a glimpse of God in the dim and dusty mirror of His creation (and if this is dim and dusty, I have no concept for the word "glory"). Such a flash is worth the cessation of your heartbeat.

I was enchanted in such a way by an insect. Yes, an insect (or is it a flower?). Pictures may succeed where words fail. So see, and gasp:


This is the Orchid Mantis, or Hymenopus Coronatu to his friends. Don't feel bad if you had to look twice. He's not hiding behind the flower, he is the flower. His legs are extended petals, supporting a patient blossom. His head is a stamen, attracting his unsuspecting food, standing with a stillness to match the counterpart he imitates.
But remember, this beauty serves a purpose. Deception. The unwitting prey must believe wholeheartedly (whole-abdomenly?) that he is flying up to a flower. That he is approaching food, not becoming food. This is a beauty that kills. This is not a decoration for your windowsill; this is a bloodsucker. A murderer masked in lavender.

I was awed by this doppelganger of death, this mantis assassin. It's elegance hiding it's coiled claws. How can this miniature majesty be so deadly? Who would imagine this? Who could create it? And why? It is bad enough that death abounds, but must it claim its victims so stylishly? Here is beauty, here is pain.

Is it too much? Must you deny God because things die? Because they are killed by other things? Do you cast aside the beauty of the painting and curse the Painter because it has shadows and contrast and black?
You decry any notion of a God who could be all-powerful, all knowing and good at the same time. You deny Him who ordains sin and hurricanes, sunflowers and meteors; who designed the fangs of the lion and the laughter of children. All because you have felt some pain; all because you are currently part of the black paint of the canvas. He cannot be good, because He has not fit into your definition of good.

What would you have? What would be the best of all possible worlds? One where there was never any pain, where the word "tear" was never conceived? Would you take the painting and airbrush away all the shadows until it was only white. Would it then be perfect? Would the blankness be beauty?

There is pain in the portrait. Contrast. Blacks mixing to greys fading to whites. A fractured spectrum in between the darks and lights. But the shadow should not complain of the tension, for it cannot see the whole painting.
Evil is what it is - evil. Displeasing to God. It should be abolished. And it will be. But it serves a purpose, to bring glory (a word I do not use lightly) to the only God and His Son, Jesus Christ. Evil magnifies the beauty. The blandness of a blank canvas is abolished by a sea of hues, shades, and contrasts. And a painting with pain in it (a painting) is a good painting. A picture that brings praise to it's Painter.

Do not curse your place in the shadow. Trust the Painter.