For my mid-afternoon snack today, I ate an apple. As I enjoyed this fruit, I began to reflect on all that had to happen in order for the apple to exist. To begin with, the distance between the earth and the sun had to be very exact in order for the sunlight to be just right, neither too much nor too little. Then, the apple tree needed carbon dioxide, much of which comes from animal life and decaying vegetation. The soil in which the apple tree grew needed to be slightly acidic; otherwise, the tree would not flourish. Of course, bees were needed to pollinate the flowers from one tree to another tree (and to add to the complexity of it all, imagine what is needed in order for bees to flourish). Finally, human beings were needed to plant the tree, care for the tree, and to harvest the apples. And all of this is merely the surface of the complexity that went into my prized apple. Just imagine the mind-blowing chain of events that had to happen, beginning with the Big Bang 13.8 billion years, to the first glimmer of life on earth 3.5 billion years ago, through all the evolutionary stages that eventually produced the apple I enjoyed today. Who or what arranged such exquisite complementarity? The miracle of life awes me. Yes, God’s footprints are everywhere! For this reason the Sufi mystic Hazrat Inaya Kahn proclaims, “There is one Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature, the only scripture that can enlighten the reader…. All scriptures before nature’s manuscript are as little pools of water before the ocean.”
Divine Mother,
Remind me of the mindfulness I need
To reverence you
As you weave together all of creation.
