Contemplative practice allows us to see the glory of simply being. The great Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins certainly recognized the Divine Presence in the “dappled things” as they are. Parishioner and contemplative practitioner Joy Kleucker offers this selection in the hopes of aiding our own recognition:

PIED BEAUTY
Glory be to God for dappled things --
For skies as couple-colored as a brinded cow.
For rose moles all in stipple upon trout that swim,
Fresh firecoal falls, finches' wings,
Landscape plotted and pieced, fold fallow and plough;
And all trades their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange.
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow, sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers forth whose beauty is past change.
                                                              Praise him.