Today, maybe for the first time in a seventeen-year lifetime of living in North Carolina, I saw
a praying mantis,
latched onto my mailbox post. I was milliseconds away from snatching the mantis up into my palm and snapping a photo with my cell phone. I probably, within the next hour, would have uploaded the picture onto my computer, printed it out, made 1000 or so color xeroxes of said photo at the nearest Kinko's, and distributed them free of charge in the parking lot of the Knightdale Wal-Mart...
...When suddenly --divine intervention-- from a loudspeaker concealed in a cumulus cloud somewhere afar off in the sky, there came the simultaneous sounds of a religious, somber chanting of Buddhist monks, chanting somber, religious things like "Praise the Mantis, from whom all blessings flow," and "Holy, Holy, Holy, O Green Mantis that has deigned to appear in mid-autumn," albeit in some foreign Buddhist tongue like Mongolian or Himalayan, I wasn't quite sure ... in discordant conjuction with the sunshine-and-bunnyrabbitness of Beethoven's "Spring" sonata for violin and piano. In a strange, connect-the-dots-for-adults kind of way it was rather fitting that the materialization of a loudspeaker in the heavens playing recorded tracks of the above should coincide with seeing a praying mantis for the first time. Makes perfect sense.
I consequently dropped to my knees. There were several dramatic flashes of lightning accompanied by several thunderous booms of thunder. A few solid shafts of sunlight perfunctorily pierced through the clouds, illuminating the mantis like something from a painting of the holy Virgin and Child.
Now this may seem trivial, inconsequential in the scheme of things, when compared with sentimental, soul-stirring stories such as angels rescuing babies from burning buildings, the tears of the crucified Jesus healing grandma's cerebral mutation, or how Sarah Palin took charge in a time of extreme distress and got rid of that damn Bridge to Nowhere. But hey. I don't complain when a miracle comes my way.
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2 comments:
Not to disregard your miracle but they have praying mantids in NC? Who knew!
I used to live in NC and ran across a Praying Mantis on an afternoon walk near my office. First time I saw one up close. I found it on the ground and put it in a nearby tree.
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