All those butterflies and flowers! God’s hand formed them all… and then pronounced it good.
Requested by Erlene–In His Time, performed by Maranatha! It makes me want to go outside and drink in the beauty of the Lord’s creation.
Tag: God’s stuff
‘Fun Stuff God Has Done: The Diplocaulus’ (2017)
Come home with this in your pail, and you’ll be famous!
Some fossils look so weird as to be not of this earth. The ancient amphibian Diplocaulus, with its boomerang-shaped head, is one of them.
Why did Diplocaulus have such a funny-shaped head? To discourage predators from swallowing him head-first? We really can’t know unless we find some live ones somewhere and observe how they live. But that’s always hard to do unless you’re in a movie.
Mr. Nature: Baby Iguanas
Yes, they get an awful lot bigger than this!
Most animals are lot more complicated than we think! They are very, very far from being just “biological machines.”
Check out this article about the social lives of baby iguanas. You’ll be surprised, I guarantee it.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/amazing-social-life-of-green-iguana/
Now I already knew or suspected much of this because I had my iguana for 17 years and he most certainly did not just sit around like a paperweight. No! Because of the way he was raised, he thought he was a mammal and acted accordingly. Other pet iguanas I knew, treated like inanimate objects that had to eat once in a while, became sulky and dull. As you would, under like circumstances.
These are social animals. In the wild, baby iguanas socialize with and learn from each other–not like a solitary animal stuck in a cage. A pet iguana, if raised and treated as a pet, will be a pet. (Note: You’ve got to get them young.) Raised with dogs and cats, it will make friends with dogs and cats. When I was teaching, I sometimes brought him to school with me because the kids were crazy about him.
Animals have the same maker we have; and God took pleasure in them and pronounced them good.
We have that in common with them.
Mr. Nature: Flying Fish Flying
Posting a still photo of a flying fish made me want to see video of flying fish.
Jambo, Mr. Nature here. Flying fish are abundant and spectacular; but having never been to sea, I’ve never seen them. I used to be fascinated, reading Kon-Tiki, by these edible little fish who used to launch themselves out of the water and wind up in the frying pan.
God’s stuff–always a treat to see it.
P.S.–Stay tuned! When I get back from the bank and the supermarket, etc., I will have a huuuuge nooze item for you (another nice mess blown up in the bad guys’ faces).
A Dog and Bunny Paradise
This is one of those glimpses God gives us into His ultimate plans for Creation. “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain…”
The dog is not going to eat the bunnies.
The parakeet is on hand to supervise.
Spring Has Sprung
Our new dead-nettles
Overnight, a host of brilliant yellow dandelions have bloomed all over our lawn, punctuated by a crop of brilliant purple dead-nettles. The squirrels have not eaten our tulips, so we have a dash of bright red, too. Is it any wonder that most people love the spring.
And then the bells of St. Francis, across the street, chimed in with For the Beauty of the Earth.
The flowers tell us: God is nigh.
‘This Is My Father’s World’
It’s positively freezing, up here in Jersey-land; and yet all the trees are suddenly in bud, and even our ancient dogwood tree has opened up its blossoms. God’s stuff is on the move.
Here’s a new rendition of a classic hymn, This Is My Father’s World, performed by Keith & Kristyn Getty… with plenty of beautiful things to enjoy.
Suddenly It’s Spring
As if by magic–but it’s God’s magic, no one else’s–we have all kinds of little wildflowers springing up around our building. Our tulips are coming up, too; and I’ll have to take care to put a cage over them to keep the squirrels from biting off the buds, a bad habit of theirs.
We have these little purple things, bright purple, suddenly visible–where were they yesterday? And crocuses, daffodils, and these tiny white flowers that are everywhere, and Patty’s Lenten roses… they’re all over the place.
And it makes me think, yes, God renews His creation every spring. He is not remote from us, He is not an absentee landlord: He is right here, with us, all the time. That’s what all these flowers are telling us. They are hymns of color, hymns of life.
For which we give thanks in Jesus’ name, Amen.
God’s Stuff: Spring Peepers
Before I get into any low-down, dreary nooze–if I get into it at all today–here’s a sure harbinger of spring: you can hear the spring peepers.
My editor, Susan, has a patch of boggy ground next door; and when the peepers come out of hibernation to mate and lay eggs, Susan calls me on the phone so I can hear the peepers singing.
God has not troubled Himself with giving them a calendar; He has created them so that they never miss their time.
God’s stuff always works. It’s our stuff that has all the problems.
Mr. Nature: The Giant Dragonfly
Jambo, Mr. Nature here–with a dragonfly that has a two-foot wingspan. Sometimes a little more.
Meganeura is prehistoric, so don’t worry about one flying into your car while you’re driving on the highway. Once upon a time, some insects grew to spectacular size (although not to the degree celebrated in assorted 1950s monster movies). Scientists think it was possible for them to grow so large because there was more oxygen in the air then than there is today. Mixing the air is God’s prerogative.
Dragonflies, totally harmless to humans, eat mosquitoes. As far as I’m concerned, we can never have too many dragonflies.