The Real Decree

For some reason I was just thinking today of Daniel, and Shedrach, Meshach, and Abednago and how God's Law supercedes anything mere supreme court justices can decree.

Saturdays

Saturdays are such great days. Good Christian talk in the mornings (today was Patrick de le Russo's talk on cultural authority versus the Authority of Christ); and now to get out into the pines and hemlock, the maples and the beech, the hawthorn and willow. And who knows perhaps another sighting of a fisher cat or a great horned owl? Or any of the myriad of magic that can happen in the glorious green wild.

On the Majority Opinion casting all disenters as those who condemn, demean, or humiliate...

And isn't that what those on the other side are doing to its detractors? Don't these 'justices' see that the same standard of condemning could be levied at them?

After the Decision

There is a Court that is more supreme than the Supreme Court.

What Else Could be Lurking

Now that I know there is a great horned owl in the Wenham woods there is expectation. Perhaps there may be an African lion, a Bermise tiger, a dangerous reptile from the dark interior of the Amazon lurking somewhere in these Wenham woods. That is the kind of feeling of expectation something like a great horned owl gives you.

What Came After the Fisher Cat

Beech tree leaves are good rain intercepters...well, up to a point. But though I got well doused with the downpour I got to see a fisher cat, a blue jay attack a massive hawk for (I surmise) invading his nest, something big and black came on the heels of the fisher cat thereby providing my imagination with the first impression that here was another wild thing only a good deal bigger and with a growl that could have been the growl of a black wolf. But alas, it was only the uneventful growl of a domestic dog (easy enough to handle). Then if all this was not enough some time later, when it began to rain in earnest, there in the same place I saw the pileated woodpecker and the owl on Saturday was a black capped night heron. He immediately flew off but perched only a short distance away where I could watch him preen himself. He was as was I not merely resigned to the drenching rain but actually I think enjoying it.

What Else was Up There

On the hike over the weekend I stopped on hearing an oriole and looked up and sure enough there was that orange and black bird darting about. But what was also up in that hemlock still as the bole of the tree but looking with eyes that were as large as tea cups and more like frisbees once I had the binoculars trained on him: a great horned owl. It was hard to tell whether he was looking at me as i...f just as a matter of curiosity, or as something that might be as much of a delicacy as a rabbit. After about sixty seconds he flew off and his body made me realize I was watching the airbus of the bird kingdom fly off. Wow. And the muffled whoo-ah, whoo-ah, the sound of a mighty bellows. Now that is a miracle of wings and a miracle of bird.

Walking by a Tidal Flat

Last night after a hike in the Steer Swamp woods I was walking by a tidal flat and got to see a Great Egret and watched him pecking at the dark water coming up with a fish every time. First what impressed me was how fast he had to be to do it, and second, how good his vision at twilight finding fish in dark water. A couple walking by I allerted to this wonder and they too watched awhile with my binoculars. They were thrilled to see him as was I. Thank God for his wonders.

A Visit to Grafton

Coming from a few days visit to my friends, the Kellers. It was great to see them all, and enjoy talk with my friends' son, Jack, on physics and math (I did little of the talking due to a paucity of knowledge on either of those two intricate fields of intellectual endeavor), perusing the grand organic garden of their daughter, Holly, who had rhubarb, squash, tomatoes, peppers for vegetables; blueberries for fruit; and peonies, roses, forget-me-nots, daisies, for flowers. And then for Max, their youngest son, who interviewed me as the celebrated G.K. Chesterton for his school project---well it was quite a good few days, not to mention that there were indeed bluebirds living in the birdhouse where we both surmised a new generation of bluebirds were being cared for and kept warm in their oval shells---and I believe John is now as hooked as I am to binoculars and gazing at birds as if they were just the thing to feed the eyes with winged flight, perched color, and music for the ears.