Sunday in the Valley

There are answers that require a leap of faith

guidelines of behavior about what we shouldn’t do,

but what of the answers that stare us in the face:

the resounding beauty of a landscape

that begs defiance despite the biblical timeline of this Earth?

This planet has brought forth life for eons

before man and our limited scope and understanding.

Science explains the evolution of the tangible:

how mountains grow and shrink again, how plates shift

and continents came to be, the ebb and flow of the tides,

how the light in the night sky is sent from stars

that existed hundreds of thousands of years ago.

It tells us that the world was not created in a day,

nor week, nor month nor decade, nor century.

Science explains in detail how the tiniest of “seeds”

can grow into a flower, a tree, or even a person in a sense,

or how a caterpillar can disappear into a cocoon

and reemerge as a butterfly.

But it cannot explain the complexity of emotions

felt when seeing our newborn child for the first time,

or when watching the unwavering determination

of someone defying the odds to reach beyond  their own endurance 

to heal, to achieve, to learn, to become more than they are.

Nor can it explain the tear that escapes 

when we see a something for which there are no words—

not because we don’t understand its existence,

but because it reminds us of our own insignificance

in the light of such grandeur.

If science explains tangibles then perhaps faith explains the intangibles,

perhaps miracles and science are not exclusive to one another,

perhaps both exist for a reason, and that is to explain the reason of our existence

      …and for me, that is enough.

© Ginny Brannan 2019

Image: Monument Valley, Colorado