This fun tune kept popping into my head all week. I thought I’d like to share it with you.
Okay–if you’re young, a lot of these references to current event of the early 1960s are going to slip right past you. But if you’re not so young, this’ll really bring back memories.
The trouble with topical humor is, it has a very short shelf life. Someday everybody who ever guffawed with Allan Sherman will have died out and everybody who’s left won’t know what the dickens he’s talking about.
I had to share this video with you all. I hope it works.
One thing I will always miss about the summer, as this summer passes on to fall, is the tiger swallowtail. These big, fragile, gorgeous, graceful butterflies are among my favorite works of the Lord. God does have a jeweler’s touch.
The wonderful thing about it is that they’ll be back again next summer, and I can love them all over again. The Lord doesn’t charge us for them.
The above video was taken at the funeral of a teacher at a boys’ school in New Zealand. All that yelling and stomping is called a “haka”–a uniquely New Zealand way of paying tribute to a person or an occasion. It was invented by the Maoris, a Polynesian people who discovered and settled New Zealand a few centuries before Captain Cook discovered it. As you can see from the video, the haka now belongs to all New Zealanders regardless of race.
I don’t know about you, but this gave me goosebumps and almost made me cry. I find it profoundly moving. This is a send-off worthy of a great chief–or a beloved and respected teacher. I think King Ryons’ army sounds like this when it’s on the march and singing its anthem, His Mercy Endureth Forever, in a dozen different languages at once.
There will be Christians who will say, “But this is a pagan custom! Wholly unsuitable for Christians!”
Fah! Have they never heard of common grace? Do they not know that out of one blood God created all the peoples of the earth? If pagans do not know God, nevertheless, as St. Paul taught the Athenians, God knows them: and God is at all times as near to them as He is near to us. So of course pagans can create beautiful, stirring music, and other fine things–because they themselves are created in the image of God.
So, yeah, you bet–the haka is entirely suitable for Christians.
Hi! Mr. Nature here, with the biggest, hugest land mammal ever to live–Baluchitherium. It’s also known as Indricotherium or Paraceratherium, but I’m sticking with the old name as I first discovered it in Roy Chapman Andrews’ books.
Anyhow, this baby is a whopper. The males were 18 feet high at the shoulder. This animal was a member of the rhinoceros family. So where’s the horn? You ain’t gonna tell me a Baluchitherium needs a horn, are you?
This is the great beast that King Ryons rode to the rescue of the city in Lee Duigon’s immortal classic, The Thunder King. Uh, wait a minute… that’s me. And it’s bad form to brag. Sorry! I seem to get carried away whenever I think about Baluchitheres.
No one has ever found a trace of any mammal bigger than this one, except for whales and they don’t count because they don’t live on the land. Baluchitherium was big enough to be a dinosaur. Big enough to squash your car like a bug.
Behold the works of the Lord, what wonders flow from His hands! Bob Bakker, the famous dinosaur scientist who, more than anyone else, convinced us that dinosaurs were active, warm-blooded creatures and not overgrown stupid mountains of flesh that had to float around in swamps, once told me it was one of his greatest pleasures to contemplate the joy and pleasure God receives from His creation.
There are still some scientists with their heads screwed on straight.
Start your day with Jesus and His love. This old hymn was a favorite in our church, when I was a boy.
I don’t go to that church anymore because it has been changed, and not for the better. But it was a wonderful church to grow up in, before it got changed, and I find that the older I get, the fresher are my memories of it.
This hymn has been with me all week. It’s a good companion.
I don’t know about you, but I need some comic relief, and I need it now.
What happens when you toss some pieces of Mentos candy into a bottle of Diet Coke? The above video will show you what happens. There is a very violent reaction–which is still perfectly safe as long as you avoid doing certain idiotic things.
Don’t try this indoors.
Don’t put Mentos in your mouth and then pour in some Diet Coke. Please do not do this. They’re calling it a “challenge” and filming themselves doing it. If you insist on trying this, remember–this blog told you not to.
Don’t do this inside your car.
These mistakes are very easy to avoid–and you can still have fun with this simple, albeit simple-minded, home science experiment.
We can worship God in many ways; and one of those ways is by enjoying and marveling at His handiwork. No matter which way we turn, the work of His hands is in front of us. It testifies to Him, and we do well to listen.
Hi, Mr. Nature here. Behold the hoatzin, a bird that lives in the Amazon rain forest. Its babies are like no other bird in the world–baby hoatzins have claws on their wings, which they can use to climb and crawl and grasp, and sometimes get themselves out of trouble.
Oh, but we’ve seen birds with claws! Well, fossils of ’em. Archaeopteryx had claws on its wings. It also had a beak full of teeth, which the hoatzin doesn’t have. But maybe the hoatzin is the last of the Archaeopteryx tribe.
(If you look closely at this famous Archaeopteryx fossil, you’ll be able to see it had claws on its wings, just like a baby hoatzin.)
Yes, I know, the Evolution crowd will climb all over this. “See! See! Birds evolved from dinosaurs!” Please ignore the perfectly modern-looking bird tracks discovered in Argentina in rocks supposedly dating from the very beginning of the age of dinosaurs. And under no circumstances trouble yourselves with the Protoavis bird fossils from the early Triassic.
We are at liberty to ignore those people.
As we are at liberty to enjoy the Lord Our God in his handiwork.
For many Christians this hymn has another tune. But in the church I grew up in, which no longer exists, How Firm a Foundation was sung to the tune of a Christmas carol, O Come, All Ye Faithful.
This, above, is the only example of it I could find. Yes, it’s only a piano playing. There is something to be said for simplicity: I believe the Lord likes it.
So find a magnifying glass for the lyrics, and sing along.