Water dancer. Happy Sunday!

Snowy Egret, Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Titusville, Florida

“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus

Snowy Egrets dance on the water when hunting fish. They lift off just enough so they can flit from spot to spot, just touching their feet on the water to pursue fish across a pond…and then pounce when they catch up. It is a fascinating and beautiful action to watch, the white birds with bright yellow feet (yellow slippers we birder’s call them), slim and graceful, dancing across the water.

Walking on the water is, of course, one of Jesus’ more famous miracles. He did it in a storm on the Lake of Galilee while his disciples in a boat feared for their lives. The gospel says “walked”, but I wonder, with the Snowy Egret in mind, if “danced” might be closer. I wonder if Jesus danced with the waves of the storm. I hope he did, graceful and wonderful as the Snowy Egret.

One of things about the generous eye is its willingness to believe in miracles when they happen, “right before our eyes,” and the tendency to see the miracles in even in the common happenings in this world. Isn’t the Snowy Egret dancing on water a miracle in its own right. I certainly can not analyze the physics behind it, or image how it is done from a mechanical and aerodynamic stand-point. I am amazed every time I see it. Amazed and delighted. I like living in a world where Snowy Egrets dance on water. It is good to remember, when the politics and stormy troubles of life in the world get to be too much, that once upon a time Jesus walked on water in the storm, and somewhere, even now, there is an Egret dancing on the waves. 

Happy Sunday!

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