God's creations: Seeing beauty, goodness

	Word to Life  Dan Luby

On a sultry Indian summer night we are walking the dog of an ailing friend. Ordinarily we enjoy these little nocturnal jaunts as our canine companion is altogether charming, and we are glad to get a little more exercise and a welcome opportunity to compare notes at the end of a busy day.

Tonight though, we are miserable. Not only are we tired and the air humid and hot, but recent plentiful rains have raised another bumper crop of mosquitoes. They fill the night with their predatory buzzing.

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Sunday, Nov. 4, 2007) Wisdom 11:22-12:2 Psalm 145:1-2, 8-11, 13-14 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2 Luke 19:1-10

A neighbor watching from the air-conditioned comfort of their living room might wonder if we are afflicted with some rare and particularly violent nervous disorder.

Shuffling jerkily along the darkened paths of the neighborhood, we wave our hands crazily in the dark. Our heads bob and weave like addled prize-fighters battling ghosts. We slap our arms and the backs of our necks and even our faces. When we land a telling blow and slap one of these micro-vampires in mid sting, we show each other our blood-flecked hands with the grim pride of the doomed.

I hate mosquitoes, I think bitterly. At best, they're an intense irritant; at worst, vectors for yellow fever, malaria, avian flu, and a host of other life-threatening plagues. What was God thinking, I wonder, between slaps and jerks of the head.

In Sunday's first reading, the writer of Wisdom praises God: "You love all things that are, and loathe nothing that you have made."

I remember the mosquitoes. I remember the human aptitude for folly and cruelty, our vulnerability to ignorance and heartbreak.

	Reflection questions • Where - in other people or myself - is there goodness and value and beauty that I might be overlooking? • What about myself or other people do I need God's help to value?

In those words of praise, I glimpse the vast difference between us and God, whose infinite capacity to see beauty and goodness in every created thing is cause for life-saving hope and heart-bursting joy.

"But you spare all things, because they are yours, O Lord and lover of souls, for your imperishable spirit is in all things!" - Wisdom 11:26-12:1

This column is offered in cooperation with the North Texas Catholic of Fort Worth, Texas.