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Knowledge and Appreciation
I sit beneath fluttering leaves on a cool spring evening, listening to the splutter of dripping water amid strange squeaks shared between too numerous young squirrels. Potted flowers and trees from every precipice of the world are gathered on the patio of a lovingly cultivated garden. Light and shadow play on passing clouds that hide airplanes carrying unseen hundreds. The sun finally begins to settle, casting new lines and dramatic shapes over the familiar scene, painting it anew.
If I had a dog, it would know things about this place that I do not: the scent of the starling, the voice of a distant pup. But it would not ponder as humans do. It can look but does not see. Dogs do not think in gardens and music and histories. They are wonderful creatures, but simpler.
Even among people, appreciation varies widely. Who appreciates a bridge like an engineer? Or a nebula like an astronaut? Or a vein like a physician? Our knowledge and interests guide our joy.
So what must this spring evening be like for the Being who made all things? I wish the dog could see what I see, know what I know, to enjoy it. God knows all. It must be a glorious evening indeed.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
This is a marvelous thought regarding God’s joy in creation – simple and logical.
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
— Genesis
Lovley.
Thomas Aquinas was once asked, “What does God do all day?”
He answered, “He enjoys Himself!”
Love that. Want to share that someday.
Another aspect of appreciation is that it is boundless in both direction. A thing can be infinitely studied in isolation. Or it can be studied as an element in a larger system. Zoom out or zoom in — a lifetime of learning awaits either way.
Your post made my day yesterday. Thank you so much! I love watching the earth come to life at this time of year. Gratitude is what gets me through every day. The fact that we’re not alone and that God is with us everyday. God bless you!
And this, my friends, is some hard-core pondering.
My BFF has always wanted to be a German Shepherd for a day. To be so agile and fearless, to have the world revealed by scent and noise . . . We were walking my dog one day and my dog wanted to linger and smell a dead something on the beach. As I was pulling him away my friend said that what the dog was experiencing was what we experience as we look at Yosemite.
But I get your point!
You are very right; the dog gathers little information visually but has an incredible sense of taste and smell (interrelated). This was a wonderful book on dog.
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Exactly so.
The greatest mystery of dogs is how an incredibly keen sense of smell doesn’t make manure smell worse! No, dogs put their noses right in it.
“Ooh, that poodle got a bacon treat this morning!”
My two dogs getting acquainted:
Awww — look at the love!
Dog Haiku:
Today I smelled
Many dog butts.
I celebrate
By kissing your face.
LOL.
Spring. Even with a dusting (or more) of snow, one can smell the arrival of spring. The moist earthy odor seeps up and into our immediate environment signaling that spring is really finally here. And so the cycle continues. I wonder what spring smells like to a dog.
Growing up in the Midwest, I can still remember that magical first Spring day when you went outside and felt the actual ground under your feet instead of packed snow and ice.
By ground, do you mean pollen? Or is that just the piney woods?
No, just the concrete of the sidewalk or your driveway etc. It had been sometimes 5 or 6 months since you had felt solid ground instead of packed-down snow and slush.
That sickeningly sweet smell of Palo Verde tree pollen is already in the air.
Here we have cedar (juniper) pollen. The allergies are just awful, and some mornings your car is covered with green powder.
Behold a cedar tree:
The man in the gif has been sneezing continually since 2002.
Haha! He probably died after that
That looks like avalanche mitigation! You stop breathing if you get caught in either one.
And just like that, the entire forest was pregnant.
Exactly!
I am sometimes left speechless, after all.
Just don’t get your hopes up. It doesn’t happen often.