"The Facts" According to Tiffany-Amber

This plant has been proudly blooming amidst the collection in my sunny back room. Tiffany-Amber wasn't the first to ask me, "Is it real ?"

"It is indeed," I said.

Tiffany-Amber and Victoria were getting ready for a trip to Point Pelee National Park with their grandfather, great, great uncle and a cousin from England. I was hunting for a pair of binoculars that I was sure was under the table this plant stands on. I wanted to make sure that she could get a close up look at the birds and butterflies that flock in this glorious park on the southernmost tip of Canada.

But she was fascinated by the plant and her ten year old mind spilled out some interesting "facts."

"Wow," she said, "If a woman wasp and a man wasp came along, the flower would get all excited, and accidentally pollinate itself...or something..." Her voice trailed off with uncertainty and I was left smiling at our resident Expert Naturalist.

The trip to Point Pelee was apparantly a great success. I have since heard tales of great fish, flocks of Monarch butterflies, dragonflies, eagles, osprey and species of birds, fish and insects too numerous to mention; the glories of God's creation, sometimes expressed with a distinct sense of humour; at least it appears so to me! How generous and liberal his handiwork. How infinite in variety and forms of beauty.

Lord, your creation astounds me and I am in awe of all that you have made.

Psalm 8
A David Psalm
1 God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.
2 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
toddlers shout the songs
That drown out enemy talk,
and silence atheist babble.
3-4 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
your handmade sky-jewelry,
Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
Why do you bother with us?
Why take a second look our way?
5-8 Yet we've so narrowly missed being gods,
bright with Eden's dawn light.
You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
Made us lords of sheep and cattle,
even animals out in the wild,
Birds flying and fish swimming,
whales singing in the ocean deeps.
9 God, brilliant Lord,
your name echoes around the world.