There were mourning doves in the road this morning, right where they always are, looking at dirt and rocks,  just like little kids. They always get safely out of the way when cars go by, but they do so very thoughtfully and slowly, as though they can't make up their minds until the last moment whether to sit or escape. I wonder how the species thrives; this is a bird that has a whole tree to live in, and yet they put five sticks together, and call it a nest, and then they lay two eggs, only one of which will hatch; then later in the spring or summer they will lay two more eggs, with the same result. They probably take everything right from the hand of God; otherwise they would all be dead, I think.

There are gray and pink doves in the dirt. They aren't at all business-minded like robins; these doves are just existing, phlegmatic, with nothing to do but sit on the ground, looking at things; if they get bored of that, they go sit on a branch or a wire and look at things.

Someone told me that there really isn't any difference between doves and pigeons; they belong to the same species. I'm not sure about that theory; but I got to thinking, why do all of our hymns have doves in them, and never pigeons? And why white doves, and never pink and gray doves? I looked up in the gospels for that dove that came to sit on Jesus's head (the very thing doves like best to do), and not one account claimed that it was a white dove, or that it appeared supernaturally lacy and full of light, like the paintings say.

Could it be that we sing about doves because they rhyme with "love" and "above", and "Pigeon" doesn't even rhyme with "tittle"? God chose a slow, shy, silly little bird to proclaim his Presence and his Son; it must have been like the very first Dove coming to rest on the very first Adam's head, a holy communion between Man and Bird; to me it seems like this wild and holy image gets spoiled by too much poetic beauty. A pigeon came as the messenger of the Spirit; not a great eagle or a somber heron or even a businesslike robin. It was a dumb pigeon, and it wasn't necessarily white.

The Psalter Hymnal would be different if folks sang about darling silly pigeons:

Come, Holy Spirit, heav'nly pigeon
Our contrite hearts inspire;
You've got all the love, so give us a smidgeon,
And feed the pure desire!

 

Wow. 

I saw a wierd commercial on TV last night; some kids came into a sad, slummy-looking neighborhood, pulled out the paint cans, and started making beautiful graffiti. They were painting the whole town in bright beautiful colors. They painted the crummy brick sidewalks and the lampposts and the ugly bank buildings, and when the bus pulled up alongside the curb, they painted the bus. They were spreading the rainbow all over town. I thought about "Reading Rainbow", and how books can help improve lives and give kids the power to change; the end of the commercial said "The KNOW is spreading", like books; then it said, "Get an HIV test".

(And we could be even happier if only child pornography was universally acceptable!)

 

By ALICIA P.Q. WITTMEYER | Associated Press
January 21, 2007


GLENNS FERRY, Idaho (AP) - Jim Martell has been hunting since age 8 and has dozens of trophies, including two 10 feet-tall brown bears from Russia, a wallaby from New Zealand and two ibex from Kyrgyzstan.

But his most exotic yet is the world's only recorded incidence of a wild polar bear-grizzly crossbreed.

Martell, 66, shot the hybrid that scientists have dubbed a "pizzly" this spring, sending shockwaves through the scientific community. The now-stuffed bear took its place in his trophy room this month, a few feet away from a Canadian wolf.

He plans to have friends and people in town over to celebrate the big kill with a bear party in the next few weeks.

"It is just a beautiful animal," said Martell, who owns a telephone company out of Glenns Ferry, and operates a Salmon, Idaho-based elk ranch. "When we first got up to it, my guide said to me, 'you have a million dollar bear."

 
The pizzly _ Martell prefers "polar grizz" _ can't actually be legally sold. But Martell has already received requests from museums that want to display the animal, and had calls from scientists asking him to describe the characteristics of the unusual creature.

From a distance, the animal looks like a slightly dirty polar bear. But up close, dark rings around its eyes, a hump on its back, long brown claws and an indented face are giveaways to its unique heritage.

DNA tests in April showed the bear's mother was a polar bear and its father was a grizzly. The bear has the small head and neck of a polar bear _ they come in handy when going after seals through holes in the ice _ but at about 7.5 feet long, it's closer in size to a grizzly than a polar, which can grow up to 11 feet.

The bear caused a stir in biological circles after Martell shot it on a 14-day, $45,450 hunt on Banks Island in northern Canada earlier this year. Polar bears and grizzly bears have been successfully mated in the past, but only in zoos; both bears' breeding habits have them mating several times before the female can become fertile, which means the two bears would have had to get along for about a week in the wild together, said Ian Stirling, a biologist who specializes in polar bears with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton, Alberta.

"It's obviously not a case of _ to use a very crude term _ a one-night-stand," Stirling said. "They've had to interact socially and very intensely socially for a very extended period of time. That's what makes this so surprising: they obviously look different, you'd think they'd recognize that they were dealing with a different kind of animal."

Martell nearly missed the bear that rocked the scientific world this spring: his guide spotted the polar bear-grizzly cross walking on a ridge above the ocean, about 300 yards away. Martell had just one shot.

It's staying in his trophy room until it goes to his oldest grandson.

Its cool but they drag it out. I want to watch them strap something to a bomb and then watch the bomb explode and watch everyone laugh and scream behind their protective gear; its very annoying to have to watch bomb experiments in short bursts, mixed in with everything else, so that you don't know how it ends for an hour.

(page 2)

I believe that there is nothing good for me or for any man but God, and
more and more of God, and that alone through knowing Christ can we come
nigh to him.

I believe that no man is ever condemned for any sin except one--that he
will not leave his sins and come out of them, and be the child of him
who is his father.

I believe that justice and mercy are simply one and the same thing;
without justice to the full there can be no mercy, and without mercy to
the full there can be no justice; that such is the mercy of God that he
will hold his children in the consuming fire of his distance until they
pay the uttermost farthing, until they drop the purse of selfishness
with all the dross that is in it, and rush home to the Father and the
Son, and the many brethren--rush inside the centre of the life-giving
fire whose outer circles burn. I believe that no hell will be lacking
which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children.

I believe that to him who obeys, and thus opens the doors of his heart
to receive the eternal gift, God gives the spirit of his son, the
spirit of himself, to be in him, and lead him to the understanding of
all truth; that the true disciple shall thus always know what he ought
to do, though not necessarily what another ought to do; that the spirit
of the father and the son enlightens by teaching righteousness. I
believe that no teacher should strive to make men think as he thinks,
but to lead them to the living Truth, to the Master himself, of whom
alone they can learn anything, who will make them in themselves know
what is true by the very seeing of it. I believe that the inspiration
of the Almighty alone gives understanding. I believe that to be the
disciple of Christ is the end of being; that to persuade men to be his
disciples is the end of teaching.

(from Unspoken Sermons, George MacDonald; compliments of the Project Gutenberg Online Reader)

I believe in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, my elder brother, my
lord and master; I believe that he has a right to my absolute obedience
whereinsoever I know or shall come to know his will; that to obey him
is to ascend the pinnacle of my being; that not to obey him would be to
deny him. I believe that he died that I might die like him--die to any
ruling power in me but the will of God--live ready to be nailed to the
cross as he was, if God will it. I believe that he is my Saviour from
myself, and from all that has come of loving myself, from all that God
does not love, and would not have me love--all that is not worth
loving; that he died that the justice, the mercy of God, might have its
way with me, making me just as God is just, merciful as he is merciful,
perfect as my father in heaven is perfect. I believe and pray that he
will give me what punishment I need to set me right, or keep me from
going wrong. I believe that he died to deliver me from all meanness,
all pretence, all falseness, all unfairness, all poverty of spirit, all
cowardice, all fear, all anxiety, all forms of self-love, all trust or
hope in possession; to make me merry as a child, the child of our
father in heaven, loving nothing but what is lovely, desiring nothing I
should be ashamed to let the universe of God see me desire. I believe
that God is just like Jesus, only greater yet, for Jesus said so. I
believe that God is absolutely, grandly beautiful, even as the highest
soul of man counts beauty, but infinitely beyond that soul's highest
idea--with the beauty that creates beauty, not merely shows it, or
itself exists beautiful. I believe that God has always done, is always
doing his best for every man; that no man is miserable because God is
forgetting him; that he is not a God to crouch before, but our father,
to whom the child-heart cries exultant, 'Do with me as thou wilt.'

I personally don't think its wrong to draw strange creatures, and I think that a lot (certainly not all) of mythical monsters could be demonic in origin, like faeries, kelpies, etc. That sounds like a fun and fascinating book!

That law reads: "Whoever by words, either spoken, or written, or by visual representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly, or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death."

That is astonishing! 

I like Frank Peretti's books. "The Visitation" was a good one.

["Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. Christianity has been found difficult, and left untried."----]

"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. Christianity has been found difficult, and left untried."---- G.K. Chesterton

One of my favorite authors!

Right at the moment, the wind isn't blowing.  The radio just reported that in Hon-Dah the temp is -4 degrees.  Thats only about 25 miles from here.  Though in all fairness,  they are higher in alt. 7,500 feet.

Here it is windy, and the temperature in Ford Hex-plorer this morning was all the way up to 28!

Our weather is fairly strange right now. We are getting frozen rain right now, but it isn't cold enough to keep it frozen. So, it has to be colder in the sky than it is on the ground. Yes - I figured that out all by myself.   

It's a blazing 38 degrees right now, and I've reported the heat wave to Al Gore.   

LOL! 

Hey Willow long time no see.
Thats never stopped you from posting in the past sister............

Man doth usurp all space,
Stares thee, in rock, bush, river, in the face,
Never yet thine eyes behold a tree;
‘Tis no sea thou seést in the sea,
‘Tis but a disguised humanity.          ~Henry Sutton




Just the other day, I saw, or I think I saw, a Tree. It was a matter of seeing a thing a thousand times without seeing; the thousand-and-first glimpse is the very first glimpse again, brand new. I looked at Trees a thousand times, and then, suddenly, I saw a Tree.

Usually, when I look at Trees, I see fingers and arms with green or autumn clothes and capes. In winter the Trees have knuckles and ribs and fingernails.
But just the other day, I looked at a Tree, and it looked familiar to me; I tried to place its face, and I realized that it did not have a face. For a fleeting moment, I did not see anything human about Trees. They reminded me, poignantly, of Branches, and Twigs, and Leaves, hanging brown and cold. I looked at a Tree; and, to my amazement, it reminded me of a Tree.

I am looking at Trees out the window right now, and trying to count to a thousand; so far, every one looks vaguely human, bony men and woman standing out in the snow. They do not mind the cold. I am waiting to find one that reminds me again of a Tree.

~Joy

Benissimo! (I'm well!)

I am a few months late for TalkerCat, though!