Zoo Day

Do you ever get to kick back and be a kid?

Usually I have to be a grown-up, but today I got to be a kid. My husband and I went to the zoo. We have a wonderful zoo in our city, and we hadn’t been there for years. So today was zoo day. We joined in the throng of parents with kids of all ages looking for and pointing at all the animals, birds, and fish on display.

“Look at the lion! He’s going over there!”

“That the ugliest bird!”

“There’s Nemo!”

“What’s that?”

“Giant turtles live to be 3500 years old. No, not really.”

What never fails to amaze me, when I go to the zoo or watch a nature show, is the diversity of God’s creation.  If I were making magpies or toucans, I’d probably think I was quite something if I made one kind. Today we saw multiple kinds of each. Zebras?  Did you know you can gauge their moods by the hike of their tails? A big-eared fox can hear termites gnawing. As we wound our way through the African Veldt, heard the lion roar and saw the giraffe reach out hungrily for lettuce leaves and finally visited the kangaroos down under, I delighted in the Creator.

While we watched the animals, it was impossible not to watch those watching the animals. Two eyes, a nose, and a mouth—the makings of a face. How many variations are there for those four components? Billions! How is that possible? I know we can get scientific, but really, four parts to a face, and we all look so different.  All of us, each face, each set of eyes, nose and mouth. Unique!

We wound up our kid-like adventure to head home. Home, where our backyard is a Midwestern zoo as well. Brown cottontail rabbits lope across the yard to feed on oats, a vole jets out of its hole and races back and forth with stolen birdseed, while a half dozen varieties of birds clamor for seed and drinking water. Wherever I turn, I’m surrounded by the ingenuity of a boundlessly creative God.

One of the things I anticipate about Heaven is the unfolding creativity that will be revealed there. Never boring, always changing, more imaginative by the century. How could it be less? Days like today are only a foretaste of what’s ahead.

By the way, my favorite animal is the giraffe. What’s yours?