Mysteries So Bright

When basil blooms, it outdoes itself.  The photo shows one cluster which is only about 1″ in diameter, so each orchid-like bloom is very small – maybe a 1/8″ or so.  There are 5 petals in each bloom – one of those about twice the width of the other four.

And then it has all the other delicate parts that make up a flower’s ability to make a seed.  It must be tiny insects that fly into them to collect the pollen.  The “wonder of it all” as the song goes, is beyond my ability to describe.

I truly believe with my whole heart -and with vastly increasing portion of my head- that God created each tiny detail of this flower on the third day in which He spoke the creation into being. And ever since, faithfully and untiringly, basil has reproduced its own kind.

The photo of the periwinkle flower also from our sunny deck displays a glory all of its own.  The rose family has 5 regular petals in the single form of those flowers, so this may be of that family.  Notice how it is unfurling (I have been watching this one – this photo is about 6 hours since it first started opening.  Again “I see such beauty there, none other can compare” as another poem says, although the poem is about the one through whom the flowers came into being: the Lord Jesus,  Blessed be His name.

I looked at an open periwinkle bloom and wondered where the pollenating parts were.  Could they be in that tiny center hole?  I carefully opened up the stem of the flower, and there were those tiny parts.  They were not really clearly visible until I put the stem under a microscope – there were the parts and some particles of pollen as well.  What complexity on such a small scale that is replicated millions of times each day!

Used by permission from WikiPedia

However, the event that inspired me to write this happened in the preparation of dinner last night.  I stepped outside to shuck some fresh ears of corn bought from our local fruit stand.  And I was struck by that very different form of procreation.  Each kernel of corn has attached to it a delicate strand of the silk which extends inside the shuck protection up to the end of the ear to the outside elemnts.

When the wind blows, that strand of silk catches a tiny bit of the pollen which is then somehow propagated down the strand to the kernel area to germinate and form the seed of sweetness that is so pleasing to us.  And this happens hundreds of times within each ear of corn on each stalk.  Such a wonderful, fantastic design!  Who could have imagined it?  I know who: our Father and His Son and His Holy Spirit – they very much enjoyed producing such infinite variety.  Cannot you sense the humor in much of it as well as the beauty?

To the old question,  “What is the chief end of man?”, the ancients declared,”To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever”.

Amen.