Posted in Good ol' days, Inspiring, Photos, Wisdom

Weekly Photo Challenge: Friendship

Are you friends with your relatives? This grandfather is friends with all his teen grandsons.

Friends
Friends

He has brought them several hundred miles to his old stompin’ grounds to find the best huntin’ in America. He says.

Did they bag anything?

Nah.

Except closer bonds.

Fun memories.

Greater respect for Granddad.

Experience in hunter safety.

Wild dreams.

Bellies aching from laughter.

Listening to songs of night creatures.

Back-slappin’ good times.

Not much.

Posted in Believe it or not!, Health, Inspiring, Photos, Scripture

Sunday Scriptures – Today

English: Joshua commanding the sun to stand still
Joshua commanding the sun to stand still (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Now then, just as the Lord promised,
he has kept me alive for forty-five years
since the time he said this to Moses,
while Israel moved about in the desert.

So here I am today, eighty-five years old!

I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out;
I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then.

— Joshua 14:10-11

Posted in Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Photos, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom, Womanhood

Women Killing Women

infant
infant (Photo credit: soupboy)

I’ve recently been seen at a site that advances the idea that it’s okay to kill babies because unattached sperm “dies”, unattached ovums “die”, and malformed embryos die. So why not kill babies?

I am so saddened by this. For one thing, I love babies. I could happily work as a babysitter all my life, if I believed in farming babies out. But I don’t.

The thought of killing such an innocent, pretty, thing, just because it is in the way, nauseates me. It’s like bashing in the heads of kittens or defacing priceless works of art for fun, or something, only far worse, because the realization that a baby is a fellow-human intensifies my identification with it.

And if it does not move or sadden you, I challenge your humanity.

I can remember being a baby. It’s not too unusual for someone to remember something from babyhood. My mom and I figure I was probably 3 months old when my dad got a crew cut and all his gorgeous black waves were gone, revealing a pale forehead. My mother says I screamed when I saw him. I don’t remember the screaming, but I do remember the event. I remember I was surrounded with the quilted white satin liner of the bassinet where I lay, and I remember his grinning face appearing over the edge of it, so traumatizing because of being wrong, missing the hair. I remember his reaction to me, his surprise and a sort of hurt look on his face. I would not have known all the details except that I asked my mom about the bassinet and my memories, causing her to recall that day, to remember how they later thought it must have been the haircut that scared me. She filled in many details, but I — I remember it.
Is anything wrong? Are murder and theft wrong?
Of course.
And we need to ask ourselves why. Why is it wrong to kill someone? Why is it wrong to take something that is not ours? Why is it wrong to hate? Why is anything wrong?
We need to figure that out for many reason, but the reason I want to address is this: The stakes are rising. The latest, the new right/wrong that people are beginning to feel comfortable with is the selective attack on women that is permeating the whole world, INCLUDING THE U.S.A. Men and women are stealing, raping, and killing women for the mere reason that they are women, and no other reason.
Are we crazy?
Whether women, just because they are women, are sold, abused, or killed, can we all say, “It is wrong,” without being challenged?
Posted in Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Photos, Scripture, Wisdom

Sunday Scriptures – Summer

 

Baby figs

“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”  –Jesus  (Matthew 24:32-34)

Posted in Photos, Sayings

Saturday Sayings: Summer!

First line of the manuscript.
First line of the manuscript. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The year is 1250 and nothing much is different, it seems!

This ancient English song, the earliest known with words and musical notation printed together, is recorded in Thomas Warton‘s History of English Poetry, itself an ancient book from the 1700’s. Try to figure out the meaning of this older version of our language and enjoy!

Sing, cuccu, nu. Sing, cuccu.
Sing, cuccu. Sing, cuccu, nu.
Sumer is i-cumin in—
   Lhude sing, cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med
   And springth the wude nu.
         Sing, cuccu!
Awe bleteth after lomb,
   Lhouth after calve cu,
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth—
   Murie sing, cuccu!
         Cuccu, cuccu,
Wel singes thu, cuccu.
   Ne swik thu naver nu!

To hear a sung rendition of it in a sweetly natural setting, consider viewing the movie, “Sarah, Plain and Tall“. This delightful version of the popular book of the same title speaks volumes to those of us who hunger for a lost childhood.