These six little cygnets showed up in the pond outside our window this morning.

They are a reminder of the glorious beauty and bursting life of creation, a reminder of the goodness and hopefulness of creation. Of course, if I took Mr Cotton Socks, our equally grey and white and fluffy cat, down to the pond, we might see a different side of creation. Actually, our cat is such a scaredy-cat, the swans would probably chase him off…

Eugene Peterson writes in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 51-52:

“Gratitude is our spontaneous response to all this: to life. Something wells up within us: Thank you! … The sheer wonder of life, of creation, of this place where we find ourselves alive at this moment, requires response, a thank you. … Wonder. Astonishment. Adoration. There can’t be very many of us for whom the sheer fact of existence hasn’t rocked us back on our heels. We take off our sandals before the burning bush. … Wonder is the only adequate launching pad for exploring a spirituality of creation, keeping us open-eyed, expectant, alive to life that is always more than we can account for, that always exceeds our calculations, that is always beyond anything we can make.”