Mothing

My parents have a new hobby, now that I am 30 I can cope with this and am extremely grateful it was not one they developed during my teens (it was bad enough having a dad AND step dad who were into morris dancing!) as the complete lack of any street-cred would have been mortifying.

They are now into mothing, that is placing a light box in the garden, switching it on at night and seeing what is there come morning (hard core mothers stay up all night cataloguing as the moths fly in! Something to aim at folks!). This all started on a recent trip to watch the moth-ers in action in Chaddesley woods which was fascinating but rather geeky, now the parents have borrowed a box and are contemplating a purchase.

Geeky it may be but like it's similarly unhip cousin bird watching, it is utterly compelling, astounding and absorbing. Overnight on saturday there were more than 20 different types visiting the box and if you thought moths were the unattractive dull brown, annoyingly fluttery, less interesting and somewhat more stupid (with their death wish like attraction to flames and lights) relative of butterflies then you have to think again. There are more than 3,000 types and the colours and markings are spectacular, the most stunning of our haul (on first impression) were the elephant hawk moths - lime green and fuscia pink!

I spent a considerable amount of time scanning the books to try and find one particularly distinctive but elusive fellow, it's like a bug (no pun intended) you have to be able to name the things, you can't let them go till you do! I was chatting to someone recently about how we humans HAVE to describe things and we were questioning whether meaning and understanding comes after naming or vice versa. We were talking specifically about the realms of management speak and how definitions are used to control politics, policies and people but the same thoughts apply elsewhere in life. He wondered if God giving Adam and Eve the right to catalogue all animals in Eden might have had something to do with it, metaphor or not ?! At any rate I discovered the 'little brown job' was called The Flame, and thus all moths were named and released.

The whole experience left me with a renewed sense of the ridiculous generosity of God's creation - these are incredibly detailed creatures, so numerous, brilliantly designed and yet they come out when most people are asleep, they go largely unnoticed.

God lavishes beauty into every possible area of life ... if only we take the time to see it.