When a zebra foal is born, so the ranger informs me, it first staggers to its feet and runs in circles round its mother’s legs. Nature’s way, no doubt, of getting those spindly newborn limbs strong enough, quickly enough, to flee from predators.

But then, exhausted, the newborn foal collapses in a weary heap and lies back, simply gazing, for hours it seems, at its mother. How very cute, I think. But this isn’t cuteness; it’s something else altogether. This is the foal memorizing its mother’s stripe pattern.

Imagine! Every single zebra on this planet has a unique stripe pattern. Memorizing its mother’s pattern is the foal’s first act of bonding, its first defense against getting lost in the herd.

I believe that God paints a unique pattern of presence in each human life. We discover this pattern as we reflect on what is actually happening in our everyday experience. It is there we will notice God’s personal relationship with us, unfolding minute by minute. This reflection becomes an attitude of mindfulness, an ongoing act of bonding, and it holds us in an unbreakable connection with the source of our being through every moment of our living.

—Excerpted from Compass Points by Margaret Silf