I’ve been looking at pine cones a lot lately.  A book I’ve been reading makes me SEE things differently.  Makes me stop and pay attention to what’s at my feet, down close. Instead of stepping over, around and on what lies below, I’m starting to take time to notice what I see.

When I went for a walk yesterday, I discovered there were a least 3 different kinds of cones within roughly 200 feet of my front door. There were rose-like, tightly bunched balls, prickly, layered missiles, and rounded, hard-edged cones from our cul-de-sac’s fir and cedar trees.

I gathered them up, placed them on my deck railing, added twigs and lichen and this simple tableau emerged. All those variations of fir and cedar cones put me in mind of what I’d learned in my college Math Class. When I went back to school (at age 36) to become a teacher I had to suffer through Math–three times. Let’s just say I’m more of a word person.

I survived Algebra because I took it (the 2nd time) in summer school, aided by a study group at my house every day after school for four weeks.  After Algebra, there was Math 45.  I can’t quite explain Math 45, but it wasn’t Algebra. It wasn’t anything I’d ever seen that had anything to do with numbers.
I knew this would be a challenge for me.  I sat in the front row of the lecture hall to be as close to the teacher as possible, to get as much help as possible.  He will probably still recall how I was brought to tears because, although he was speaking English,  i just didn’t get it…

However, I persevered; we got to Chapter 8 and I was supremely rewarded.  Dr. Tannenbaum introduced us to the beautiful Fibonacci Sequence, (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21,34, 55, 89, 144, etc.)  The magic of this formula is this: add the first two numbers together and you get the next number, second two numbers together, you get the 3rd and so on). This series of numbers showed the not-so-random patterns in nature of things like….

Leonardo da Pisa, (‘Fibonacci’) was a mathematician who discovered and identified a pattern in nature that was quantifiable, a formula which was also called The Golden Ratio, or The Divine Ratio. Divine–and no wonder–only God could make things so perfectly beautiful in a way that revealed order, thought, planning.  Revealed Him.
In Colossians Chapter 1, Paul writes:
¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
 ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

I began to love Math.  Why?  Well, because it simply proved what I already knew to be true about the world around me. It seemed obvious– All of Creation points to a Divine Creator God if we have eyes to see Him. 

I’m being reminded of something I discovered twenty years ago—slow down, see, look for your Creator in His Creation–it all points to Him. 

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For more information about the Fibonacci Sequence, click here.