translated from the Spanish post at Petalos de Maria
My husband and I have recently adopted a new routine after work. He’s at the office before 6 AM and I am usually there at around 7 AM, so we’ve put in a full day’s work when most people have finished lunch.
By 4:00 o’clock, we’re thinking about dinner. When did we become those people having the Early Bird special at Cracker Barrel? Oh my! We’ve become the butt of our children’s jokes, but funnier still is our post-modern realization that we have become the butt of our own jokes.
That’s okay. I’ve realized that the earlier we eat, the sooner we can sit outside and enjoy the beautiful weather and our recent addition of a bird bath and feeder. We’re not really experiencing the empty nest because we’ve adopted a family of beautiful cardinals. Every afternoon we sit on our porch with our coffee and watch the cardinals. We also get some random pigeons, a few thrashers, and even a menacing blue jay.
It’s a lovely way to wind down after a long day at work. It also gives us time to reconnect. What better way to do this than while basking in the late afternoon warmth and being in communion with nature?
We reconnect with each other, but in the sometimes long silences that we sustain from years of intimacy, perhaps we slip into our own minds and hearts for this late afternoon breather. We’re together, but we’re also somehow alone with our own thoughts, and often they turn to wonder and appreciation for the world our God has created.
St. Augustine observed in his Confessions to “Let Thy works praise Thee, that we may love Thee; and let us love Thee, that Thy works may praise Thee….”
It may be centuries later, but I am experiencing the same wonder that St. Augustine had at the magnitude of Creation, and the magnitude of God! The Catechism tells us that through “the world’s order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe” (CCC 32). What a wondrous gift to have a glimpse into His Beauty.
It’s a humbling realization, and a fitting way to put our days in perspective, when we can see that we have a place in this world as part of God’s Creation.
