Unending Diversity

On a walk over lunch today, I was suddenly overwhelmed by the diversity of the universe. I was struck by the vibrant fall colors on the ancient oak trees that surround my office, and how the leaves are all an expression of the genetic personality of the tree but how each leaf is distinct unto itself. I thought about the blades of grass in the park. I thought about sparrows and lilies. I thought abstractly of the 2 million or more different kinds of insects, and the 10 quintillion insects that are alive on the planet right now. I remembered something I read once about how there are an estimated 100 billion planets in the Milky Way, which is itself just one of at least 175 billion galaxies in the expanding universe. As cars rushed past me on Liberty and Commercial streets, I started thinking about people – about the 7 billion people alive today, as well as the estimated 106 billion people who have ever lived – and about their fingerprints and eyes and the hairs on their heads. And then my imagination blew a fuse. Talking to a co-worker helped. Ladies and gentlemen, the unending, always original, material expressions of God as Maker…