amazing anomaly ….

My grandchildren keep me in the know. Their curiosity for the world around them is positively delightful and has me scrambling in their footsteps to keep up. My newest acquaintance, thanks to my eldest granddaughter’s current obsession, is….an axolotl.

An axolotl, for those like me who did not know, is a species of salamander. It looks rather like an alien life form or a cartoon version of a cuddly amphibian with spiky protrusions of gills. It is a biological anomaly defying Darwinian evolution by reaching adulthood without completing the normal phases of metamorphosis like other similar cold-blooded vertebrates of their kind. It retains its webbed feet, external gills, and continues to live in the water, but also has functional lungs. These creatures are known to have a super power. They can regenerate body parts: limbs, lungs, heart, jaws, spines, and even parts of their brain and are 1,000 times more resistant to cancer than mammals. They inhabit still lakes in Mexico and are on the critically endangered species list. They have a few predators but their biggest threat comes from humans through progress and pollution. I LOVE learning these things!

Our world is filled to brimming with amazing creatures that defy our best scientific hypotheses with their unique qualities. I feel sure that there are scores we have yet to discover. “What we know is a drop. What we don’t know is an ocean. ~ Issac Newton. And another pearl…Wisdom is knowing what you don’t know. ~ Socrates. Childlike curiosity must keep us ever seeking.

That being said, I firmly believe that Nature remains our greatest teacher. I am always on the prowl to learn and gather another Tree Star. So what does the little axolotl have to tell me? When something catches my attention…..I am meant to stop and ponder. In this one, I see a metaphor for us. We, too, are a biological anomaly on Planet Earth, so distinct from the other creatures. We have the potential of so much, but we haven’t completed our metamorphosis yet either. We retain our functional earthly body parts while growing a few new ones through grace and mercy, as we anxiously await a time where we will be bestowed by our Divine Super Power a new body and everything will regenerate and illness will be gone. The fact that our heart yearns for something Earth can’t supply is proof that heaven must be our home. ~ C.S. Lewis. We do have a few predators but we are not technically an endangered species. However, we are also in-danger from human progress and pollution of the mental variety and the destructive choices they may produce in us.

Thanks little Axolotl for again reminding us with your amazing anomaly that we are still in a state of arrested metamorphosis waiting for what God has in store for us and we have a lot to look forward to.

While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit. ~ 2 Corinthians 5:1-5