I apologize for the lack of blog entries these last two months, but from Thanksgiving, right up until this day, New Years Eve, life has been too happily full, to find time to write anything. For that matter, it still is and this particular New Years Eve blog has been pirated from my Christmas letter. Consequently, it will be one of those "personal history" rather than "natural history" blogs. With a good dash of Godness within it. I am looking back "Solomon style" to see what wisdom I have garnered while "toiling under the sun".
I believe I am a visual learner, for I often conjure up mental images to cement a concept in my mind. For a long time, I have had this image of "Life as a conveyor belt". Picture the newborn babies just getting on and the rest of the generations spread out at further points. So here I am, on the cusp of 65 and realizing I have been chugging along for some time and am now getting to the far side of the belt. And I humbly submit that from where I stand, I can claim to have picked up a few insights along the way. We all have. Why not share them then, our own book of Ecclesiastes, with apologies to Solomon!
~ To my friends who are of a similar age, let us admit we ARE lucky to have made it this far. Watch any newscast, any day and you will see how tragically short some peoples conveyor belt ride is. “You do not know the day or the hour” rings true every day when the news presents us with the harshness of life that is the daily reality for so many people on this planet. Things I can’t imagine living through. If our lives aren’t the leading story of a newscast, let us be exceedingly thankful.
~EVERYBODY needs his or her peer group through every stage of life. Young moms need young moms, teen parents need teen parents, anyone suffering from any illness could use the advice of those who have walked that road before them, and naturalists need other crazy naturalists who get just as excited about scat as they do. Took me a while to find them here in Texas but I did and I thank God for them!
~ We are ALL crazy! And it is simply amazing how many forms of “crazy” there are. You know yours and I know mine and a standard prayer of mine is, “God give me grace for other peoples “crazy” as I pray they will give me grace for mine.”
~We ALL have talent. In my book, it is God given talent, and he keeps trying to teach me that my OWN talent will do and I need not envy other people who are so graced with some talent that I have zero of. That’s OK Pat, if we ALL had artistic talent how would we even realize it in others? My lack of skills makes yours shine and I am happy to do so.
~We ALL have an affinity for certain topography. Most of my life has been spent in the temperate zone: a life of deciduous and pine, moss and ferns and, for many years, oceans and marshes. I was always amazed that so many military people from the South LOVED the South, heat, humidity and all. ALL Texans LOVE Texas because it is the landscape set down in their youth. God Bless them. I, however, am not adapted to thrive in caliche soil but need a marshier ground under my feet. And how I pray I can someday get back to that life “between the tides”.
~ And finally, God loves EVERYBODY. That realization has been with me for a long time thanks to a great talk I heard years ago by John Maxwell. I think it was called “The Five Things I Know About People”; so funny, so moving, so right on, and the way he expressed GOD LOVES EVERYBODY just sunk in and stayed with me. Some people think Christians hate everyone that isn’t Christian. That couldn’t be further from what Jesus told us to do. He loves everybody and we are to do the same. That’s how they will know we love him; by the way we love each other. So how is that going? Not so well. We are such flawed creatures, but it doesn't change who God really is. He isn't flawed at all and loves with a love you just can't get anywhere else. I always joked that the two sources of unconditional love were G-O-D and D-O-G. But, love my dog as I do, I realize God has slightly more to offer.
So please, all of you out there with a tainted view of God, it comes, dare I say, from the flawed actions of we flawed followers. Condemn us for our hypocrisy but don't ever get the idea that God is like that. I always say, look at Jesus, not US and find something not to like about him. Too much love maybe, too much forgiveness, too generous, too much creative genius? Try to ask yourself what you don't like about God himself: not us, not religion, but God himself. It may be worth your time to consider the question.
OK Pat, step away from the pulpit and wish everyone out there in blog-land the best of whatever this new year will have to offer. I have been thrilled to be in ME with my grandchildren, thrilled to have it snow, thrilled by the unidentified, as of yet, tracks in the snow. When I have caught up with my piled up work in Texas I hope to come and share some of these northern finds with you all.
Meanwhile, look back with wisdom on the time gone by and look ahead with hope for the unknown of what is to come. Happy New Year to you all!
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