Holy Fun

” …a merry heart has a continual feast.”  Proverbs 15 :15b

Oh.  Ooh!  Ahh! The sky erupts in a golden chrysanthemum followed by bursts that shade from white to green to magenta.  The awed crowd trembles with the concussion of each shell and stares, open-mouthed, at the majestic fireworks.  How much more majestic is the handiwork of God!  We gaze in awe at Hubble’s pictures of nebulae and infant stars, or the Rover’s shots of the surface of Mars. We stare in wonder at crashing waves and howling winds.  It isn’t hard to be reduced to humble silence in the face of the works of the Lord.

Whiz, whee, zing, thp.. .thp…thp.  What is this?  A shell dances in crazy curlicues across the sky in a shower of sparks.  The solemn crowd bursts forth into laughter.   No, the Bible never tells us that God laughs, but can’t you just see Father, Son and Holy Spirit chuckling together?  “Let’s see what they’ll make of this one?  How about a duck’s bill?   Webbed feet?  OK.  But also fur. And just to make them really scratch their heads, how about letting it lay eggs and produce milk?  They’ll call it a platypus.”  What else but divine joy could make great whales leap into the sky just to crash back into the ocean in an explosion of foam or send playful otters chasing each other down a mud slide into a pond?

Yes, the world is in crisis.  Disease, famine, riots, war, death are in every headline, on every tongue. But the God who made dancing dolphins, tail-chasing dogs and silly monkeys is still in control.  It’s okay to smile.