Words from Pep Ants and the Fox

Words from Pep

Ants and the Fox

The faintest of outlines remained on the gravel shoreline. Here, several months earlier the spirit of a fox had departed leaving its physical depiction to slowly return to the earth. A meager arrangement of bones covered in moss, a sparse mat of hair and several white teeth persisted in expressing her corporal reality. What were her life experiences? Was there value in her existence? Where did her essence go? Did her consciousness continue? . . . . . . The dissolution of flesh, bone, sinew is the future of all life. You and I, crow, fox, eel and beetle, exist for but a moment in physical representation. It is the turning of the great circle. . . . . . Here at day’s end, in the twilight, I paused in reflection on the brief sojourn of all flesh. There is no escaping the fragile humility of our beings. Grace alone grants you and I the experience of this gift called life. . . . . . I sat down next to her and wondered how I would be remembered and for how long - a mere generation at best. Have people been able to see into my heart, what is really there? What have I presented to world? How might my being have been expressed if pride had been less, intransigence tempered by meekness, if I had learned to esteem vulnerability above defensiveness? . . . . . When all our convictions and philosophies turn to dust in the piercing light of mortality we are unable to deny the vanity that dominated much of life. In that moment there is no disagreement with our nearsightedness. . . . . . Sitting there in the midst of this revelation the Voice of Forever arose from the sand and stones around us, “Nevertheless, all of My creation is beautiful to Me. Eternity judges you not.” . . . . . Through eyes moist with thanksgiving I beheld a pair of ants tugging in opposite directions on one of her teeth. It was apparent they too thought highly of all aspects of this fellow sojourner. 

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ONE WORLD  -  ONE FAMILY OF MAN  -  ONE CREATOR OF ALL