Nature’s Example

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement
Nature’s Example

What fun to watch the giraffe family at our nearby zoo. The family is complete with Mamma, Daddy, a teenager, and a new youngster. There’s something stately about the way those tall, beautiful creatures walk or use their very long legs to lope over distances in elegant steps. Their long tongues are adept at stripping leaves from branches and stuffing them in their mouths. Their long necks stretch effortlessly into treetops to nip off tender young shoots. Most fascinating of all is to watch that tall creature overcome the one time their long legs are a handicap. They are too long when they want to get a drink of water from a creek at ground level. Even their great long necks can’t bend to bring their mouths to reach the ground because of their even longer legs. It’s intriguing to watch how they accommodate themselves to solve the problem. Their answer is to splay their legs far apart to each side to drop their body enough that they can lower their mouths to slurp water with their long tongues. After lapping up enough to quench their thirst, the giraffes shuffle their legs back to their normal upright posture.

I borrowed the giraffe’s technique recently. When my knee acted up, picking something up from the floor brought a yelp of pain. I remembered that giraffe and borrowed its undignified position to pick up whatever I needed to retrieve from the floor. I was glad no one was around to take my picture with legs spread wide, but I could pick up whatever I dropped. Thank you, Mrs. Giraffe. I suppose Mamma modeled that stance for her young one to copy. Nature offers us other examples of how to accommodate ourselves to accomplish what needs doing. There is the industrious ant storing up food for later use. Monkeys groom each other. Mamma cats clean up their kittens. Thank you, God for all the fascinating creatures you put on our world., and what we can learn from them. Help us open our minds to the examples around us for new ways to accommodate to our circumstances. Give us a willingness to do the extra bit that helps us accomplish what you want us to do.