They taught us kids in school between the recess breaks
That the universe just sorta fell together like a Big Mistake
It started with a bang that sent the pieces flying
Then it cooled and twirled into dinosaurs and dandelions

It was a Big Mistake to have eyes that see
To have love like this inside of me
To have lips that smile as I swim your kiss
To have minds that will forever every part of this
All the moonlight shrouded in the clouds above and
the autumn leaves and the falling love
The still reflection in the moonlit lake
All, they said, it was a big mistake, it was a big mistake

Now back to science class through the looking glass
We were magnifying little ancestors of our ancient past
Watch ’em break a couple chromosomes, wait a zillion years or so
And get an ostrich, a jellyfish, a kangaroo, and a Romeo

The choreography of a coincidence
At the turning point there was eternity behind a moment’s glance
It was for you and me — the timing made us laugh
The fact that anyone could find their only one along this darkened path.

–David Wilcox, “Big Mistake”

In the beginning was the gift. And the gift was with God and the gift was God. And the gift came and set its tent among us, first in the form of a fireball that burned unabated for 750,000 years and cooked in its immensely hot oven hadrons and leptons. These gifts found a modicum of stability, enough to give birth to the first atomic creatures, hydrogen and helium. A billion years of stewing and stirring and the gifts of hydrogen and helium birthed galaxies—spinning, whirling, alive galaxies created trillions of stars, lights in the heavens and cosmic furnaces that made more gifts through violent explosions of vast supernovas burning abright with the glow of more than a billion stars. Gifts upon gifts, gifts birthing gifts, gifts exploding, gifts imploding, gifts of light, gifts of darkness. Cosmic gifts and subatomic gifts. All drifting and swirling, being born and dying, in some vast secret of a plan… which was also a gift. One of these supernova gifts exploded in a special manner, sending a unique gift to the universe, which later-coming creatures would one day call Earth, their home.

–Matthew Fox, from Creation Spirituality