Beauty

With children, you get to see the world through fresh eyes and rediscover it for the miracle it is. Having a child later in life, I've been given a refresher course in noticing the details, despite the fact that my eyesight is going. Or, maybe because of it. After all, I'm rarely without at least one pair of glasses atop my head; often, I resemble a spider with my numerous sets of eyes. When my youngest points out something that has caught her eye, I usually have to slide my readers down the bridge of my nose to peer at it more closely. Thank goodness for magnifying lenses - I would miss so much without them!
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I've also become fascinated with the Mandelbrot Set in the last several years, so much so that I named an important character in my books for it. If you are not familiar with them, I urge you to Google images of these stunning fractals. By assigning color to specific absolute values of complex quadratic polynomials (pardon the mathematical jargon - I don't really understand it, but some of you may), the Mandelbrot Set shows more intricate detail the closer one looks at, or "zooms into" the larger image. In other words, the smaller the fractal, the prettier the picture. Here's an example:
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Go ahead - click to see it up close. Each little swirl is made of even smaller little swirls, all starting with that bulb-like, black buggy-looking thingy. 

(CCBYSA3.0,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=322042)

​If math can be this beautiful, how much more so individual people, not to mention the rest of the world? You've heard it said that the "devil is in the details", but I prefer to think that is where God lives; in the minutia. Anyone can draw a stick figure and convey the idea of a man. It takes creativity, talent, and purpose to paint a believable portrait, and divine inspiration to breathe all creation into life...and more patience than we can possibly imagine. Regardless of my pitiful observations, there is more to our existence than meets the eye. The idea that I am but a small part of a grander picture reminds me of my significance - not insignificance - but in proper perspective. I have particular beauty, yet a responsibility to the whole.

​We all do. 

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