I read this Psalm this morning–Psalm 46, “God is our refute and strength”–and I want to share it with you.
God’s providence is woven into the fiber of the physical universe, sustaining it moment by moment. But He is also the Lord of Hosts, mighty in battle: and when He intervenes in history–watch out!
If puppies and kittens can figure it out, why can’t human beings? It’s nice to be nice!
They’re supposed to be hereditary enemies, right? Well, obviously they know how to overcome that. And when they do, they give us a peek into the kind of Kingdom God has in store for us… in His own good time.
They can also figure out how to get out of a jar.
How would an octopus know how to get at the contents of a jar with a twist-off cap? I mean, it’s not something he’s seen before, and learned how to do by watching others do it. What would happen if you let an octopus watch a lot of chess games?
Anyway, here’s some of God’s stuff to start the day–the intelligence of the octopus. God’s creation: that’s how He made them, for His own good pleasure.
This is Good Friday, and our blog will observe it by not covering any of the nooze today. Hence the video of the baby iguana eating watercress. Aren’t they pretty little things? God’s stuff is just so good.
I’d love to raise a baby iguana again. If you do it right–and it’s easy to do it right–you wind up with a wonderful pet. If you do it wrong, you wind up with this big mean lizard who wants to bite you. A friend of mine had an iguana who bit him on the tongue. Yes, he was showing off by sticking his tongue out. Teenage boys do things like that. And the iguana bit off the tip of it. Yowch! Served him right.
But my iguana was raised right, and he never bit anybody. And if he could have purred while he sat on your lap, he would have.
Tulips are supposed to be short-lived; but our original tulip–the tallest one in this picture–was here when we moved in, forty-plus years ago, and it’s not only still here, still beautiful, but it has three offspring.
For a few years there, we thought we were going to lose it because squirrels had decided the flowers made a nice snack. That generation of squirrels seems to have passed, and its successors haven’t shown any taste for tulips.
So the flowers bloom in the spring: God’s stuff reminding us, “God is nigh.”
Jambo, everybody, Mr. Nature here. And today we’re off in search of flying snakes.
Once upon a time, people believed that Arabia bred flying snakes which would sometimes migrate to populated areas and become a deadly plague. Herodotus wrote all about it–and was pooh-poohed by later generations.
But in real life, Indonesia is home to the paradise tree snake–a snake which glides through the air from tree to tree. So maybe Herodotus wasn’t as all wet as everybody thought. (Hint: He usually turns out not to be!)
Ah! you say. But what does a flying serpent hunt?
You’re gonna love this.
Flying lizards!
God’s stuff–cooler than we ever would have thought of.
The only reason this video is here is because my brain is wrung out after typing up a 2,000-word book review for Chalcedon, and it needs a nice massage.
You’d think there’d by more than enough nuts to go around, here, but the chipmunks and the squirrels would not agree. It looks ferocious, but I don’t see any of them getting hurt.
God’s stuff–a pause that refreshes.
Here are some of little Gabi’s collection of gifts from crows.
Mr. Nature here, with something that sounds like folklore, but isn’t.
Did you know some crows–not all of them–give gifts to human beings who have done them a good turn? I didn’t. But it seems crows will decide they really like a certain person, and show it by giving gifts.
One of their favorite humans is an 8-year-old girl in Seattle who’s been feeding crows in her back yard and receiving gifts from them in return (https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026). She has amassed quite a collection–pretty stones and bits of glass, screws, a discarded light bulb, a Lego piece, and a little plastic heart (her favorite). She leaves peanuts on a tray, and the crows leave gifts.
Crows are smart! Really smart. In Japan they’ve learned to deposit hard-to-crack nuts on street intersections. Cars run over the nuts; and then, when the light turns red and the cars stop, the crows fly down to pick up the goodies.
As Rev. D. James Kennedy used to say, “Ain’t chance grand?” But he and we know it wasn’t chance or evolution that gave crows their smarts: this is how God created them. And I’ll bet He had a good time doing it.
You may wonder, at first, what a lot of African wildlife has to do with this 18th-century hymn. But keep looking! Just as the heavens above display God’s handiwork, it’s all around us here on earth. Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, an unusual treatment by Sufjan Stevens–unusual and lovely.
See? They don’t just knock books off shelves and commandeer the dog’s bed! This video is proof that cats can be as lovey-dovey as you please. In fact, once they’ve got your arm, they aren’t about to let you go. We even see a cat cuddling some parakeets.
Just one of those things we never would’ve thought of, if we’d been creating the world; but which God did.