Spiritual Lessons from Biology

            I recently flew home from a business trip.  The day I’d embarked, a mere four days previously, everything had seemed normal.  Yet on this, the day of my return, a sense of nervous urgency electrified the air.  Passengers feverishly wiped down their seats, armrests, and tray tables.  Some wore face masks.  All wore knitted brows and anxious glances.  I knew full well the reason for this behavior change.  The day I left there were 4 people infected in my home state.  The day I returned there were 40.  COVID-19 is steadily marching on.             I remarked how some of these individuals went to great lengths to make their environment clean, while at the same time spouting foul language and unkind gestures.  Surely our surfaces have never been cleaner…yet, within, there is fear, greed, and anger.  What if we cl...

It was an early autumn morning.  A vicious chill bit my knuckles through my gloves as I drove my trusty Toyota to our hiking troupe’s meeting place.  We gathered together in the parking lot, jostling poles and back-packs as we huddled together for warmth.  We all took turns peering up at the ominous black bellies of the low-hanging clouds. “Should we still go?” my friend asked.   “Looks like nasty weather.” Our troupe leader has been hiking these mountains for five decades.  She knows their faces, their moods.   She surveyed the sky with a knowing eye and said, “We’ll head up.   Ten bucks says these clouds melt away at 7,000 feet." So we piled into the four-wheelers and drove up into the misty mountains.   The gray shroud left teary streaks on our windows.   I watched them crawl along in trembling, horizontal lines down the glass.   All at once, about 6,800 feet above sea level, the welcoming arms of golden sunbeams reached...

In the deep, sleepy greenery of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains, live two of my very favorite human specimens.  I visit them when I need a break from the hustle and bustle of life.  No matter what time of year it is, Mary and Lonnie are always free for a visit!  The house is nestled deep in the forest where a green glow settles in the underbrush and the air is wet and heavy.  On their property, down by the base of the house, a reflecting pool offers sanctuary to the wildlife.  During my last visit, I kept watching the pool with the hopes of seeing any of the various wild animals come for a drink.  No such luck.  But on the last day of my stay, my friends turned on the fountain attached to the pool.  Immediately all manner of creature came out of the forest to drink the water!  Black capped chickadees, chipmunks, dragonflies; it was a veritable menagerie! I watched the scene, totally enchanted.  Then I began to wonder, why had all ...

Last month the snows came in full force.  The Colorado sun, usually so obliging, was blocked for days behind a frosty shroud.  I am one of those people who goes batty pretty quickly unless she can get outside into the fresh air, even in poor weather.  So I geared up in my winter attire; a soldier heading into a battle against the elements, and set out for the mountains of Sedalia.  I spent a lovely afternoon snowshoeing through the sparse forests and open plains.  It was quiet out there in the wilderness.  Only the deliberate whispers of my snowshoes moving across the terrain and my heavy breathing broke the silence.  In the bitter cold, even the birds stop singing.  Sometimes you can see them, little sleeping puffballs, tucked deep in the trees.  The snow stopped falling, and at last the sun crept her way through the ether.  All at once the pillowy drifts of snow became heaps of minute diamonds.  I blinked against the dazzling whi...