A Gang of Cavorting Porpoises

Yesterday, Orchids was featured in the Painters in Modern Times group at RedBubble. I am grateful for the hosts’ support and encouragement!

I’m reading what is probably the best book I’ll read this year, In the Likeness of God, by Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey (though I haven’t finished the book or the year yet).

I’m beginning to think one of the best gifts God gave us (to learn with, anyway) is analogy. Earlier this year, I read Mind Of The Maker, by Dorothy Sayers and learned a lot about God as Creator by looking at human creators/artists. In The Likeness of God is about the human body and what we can learn about the One who created it and also the Body of Christ, the Church.

I’ve never felt I was particularly talented at finding/creating analogies myself, but perhaps it is something I should pursue. I seem to learn best from them. Jesus’ parables are analogies. I wonder how one goes about learning how to work with analogies?

(Actually, I have a short story I tried to write once that was an analogy, but I never finished it. I have more ideas than I have self discipline, and the light bulb that goes on over my head is sometimes a strobe light.)

In any event, I find myself wanting to quote extensively from this book, but I try not to quote too much from any one book here. Right now, I’m only on page 175 (of 552, though it’s not difficult reading), and I’ve got 3 fantastic passages I’d love to share! Since I really should just pick one, I guess I’ll go with the fun simile (i.e., analogy, if you don’t split hairs):

I can understand the complex process of keratin producing rigid fingernails and horses’ hooves. But no amount of training will lessen my astonishment as I watch a single stalk of keratin push its way out of a follicle, grow erect and proud and shockingly unfurl as a peacock feather. What was chemistry becomes beauty. It is as if a brilliant Appalachian quilt springs from a rock, as if a desert suddenly births a gang of cavorting porpoises.