I am a snail, oozing my way along a garden path,
The shell on my back gives me quick retreat
My vision is limited
I understand so very little.

But I am me. What else can I be?
There is no butterfly metamorphosis for a snail.
No hope of flight. No second life.
What good am I?

Good thing snails are not very self-reflective, huh?

Yet, what do You think of snails?
Do You love the swirls of the shell?
Does the slimy trail seem luminous?
Am I more than bird food in Your eyes?

Is Your vision more interconnected than that?
The All is not a collection of so many single ones,
But a bigger whole, with each part valued, nothing lost,
Conserving energy and matter, alike.

Nothing is lost within Your hands
Nothing is useless, either, though I can use things wrongly.
That ability to choose changes our relationship, doesn’t it?
Have You placed my fingers, alongside Yours, on the steering wheel?

Do my choices move the universe, imperceptibly, toward love or selfishness?
Geeze. I think I have a bit of snail-envy this morning.
To live my arête without such mental machinations might be nice.
(And now I am Snail-van-Gogh, using my slime to make art on the sidewalk.)

Help me smile with You at the art of it All.
Help me to strive and rest in You,
To lend my leaning to the wheel of the universe, however small.
And find my arête in that, in You.

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[photo ‘fast turn‘ by John Keogh per cc 2.0]