Photo and Commentary ©2023 by Maylan Schurch
Friday, March 31, 2023
Monday morning I needed to mail a couple of time-sensitive letters at our local post office. But when I got out to the car I discovered that Ma Nature, that same no-nonsense matriarch I first got acquainted with as a Dakota farm boy, had spent the early morning hours fashioning some art-work for me. The only difference was that back in the day, she would grow the frost-patterns on my single-pane non-insulated bedroom window—on the inside!
As I shivered from those childhood memories, I noticed something else that was different about Monday’s frost-pattern. I seem to remember that the prairie frost-patterns were leisurely and lavish, and resembled trees in an icy fairyland. But Monday’s pattern seems somehow hastier and harsher.
But it’s still beautiful in its way. I would imagine that detailed studies—most likely involving fractal theory—have been documented about just how and why ice crystals do this. I mean, why didn’t this turn out to be a bland piece of sheet ice? Why the whorls and the ridges?
I don’t know whether the Creator decreed in the beginning, “Thus says Me: in the event that this planet ever gets cold enough to make ice patterns, these designs shall be beautiful rather than banal.” Or maybe God’s creation, in whatever non-ideal state, can’t help being intriguing.
I do believe, though, that He created us with minds which are—in the words of a friend of Shelley’s—“pattern-seeking devices.” And I have a feeling that He smiles appreciatively when we spot these patterns.
As His Sabbath dawns this evening, why not click the link just below and revel again in the Bible’s revelations about our Maker?