In order to appreciate the beauty of nature, we often look up at the clouds, the mountains, and the trees; we enjoy watching butterflies and birds in their surroundings. We are amazed by nature's majesty or the complexity of its designs. We love the changing colors of the leaves or the beautiful melodies of the songbirds. But sometimes we need to look down, for that's where we find the wonders of reptiles and amphibians, insects, rocks, fish, and mammals—among other earthbound wonders too numerous to mention.
On a cold afternoon I headed out to our woodpile in the edge of the woods. It was time to build a cozy fire in the fireplace and have a cup of hot tea. It had been raining profusely and, thankfully, the woodpile was covered with a tarp. I needed to make several trips from the pile to my front porch, each time carefully carrying a few large, splintery split pieces of oak that would become my warmth. I had to be careful, though, just in case some little denizen of the woods had previously decided to nestle down between the pieces of firewood. I was especially on the lookout for those obnoxious little critters known as scorpions.
Trip after trip in the bitter cold I walked to the front porch, and each time I missed the beautiful work of art that was stretched from the grass to the bottom of the brick step. Not very big. Not very big at all. But it was a masterpiece. When I paused from my work and discovered what I had previously failed to notice, I hurried to get my phone so I could take a picture. It was too beautiful to simply entrust it to my memory.
A small, unknown creature, one who possessed the natural mathematical knowledge and dexterity that we humans long for, had spun her web in an ordinary place. As the rains tumbled down, drops fell on the silky thread that a spider had so carefully woven. No algebra class. No geometry class. Just touch and instinct to create her web without any desire to impress another living creature. I didn't see any signs of the spider; she wasn't home. Yet her web remained, and Mother Nature worked her special magic. The rain drops that were scattered across the complex design of that web combined with the afternoon light to create suspended droplets of water. They sparkled, so I called them "rainy day diamonds."
Yes, sometimes we need to look down. And we need to pause a moment in our frenetic pace of life. We need to take a deep breath and look for the extraordinary in the ordinary.