(December 2024)

This past year I read a book called Animal Algorithms in which the author, an expert in aviation engineering, explains how the navigational abilities and genetic wiring of bees, birds, and other creatures challenge evolutionary paradigms. The sophistication of their various complex behaviors confounds human efforts to comprehend them.

For instance, eastern North American monarch butterflies somehow migrate from Canada to a quite small patch of Mexico, often landing on the very same tree their ancestors departed from . . . three generations earlier. I think the author might appreciate, as I do, how our somewhat neglected Christmas cactus manages to bloom right on time every year, earning its place in our nativity scene.

While I don’t grasp all the invisible algorithms of plants or butterflies, I can join the psalmist who said, “Wonderful are your works.” The Lord’s greatness is unsearchable. Let heaven and nature sing.