Monday, May 03, 2010

Last week I wrote in my journal, “ I am waiting with great anticipation to see what leaders in my church will say publicly about the Arizona anti-immigration law.” I am happy to report that pastors in all services decried the violation of civil rights in Arizona and in all places where people are denied civil liberties. The dove in my hanging plant isn't the only bird that comes often to my yard. Both male and female house finches like my hummingbird feeder and take advantage of the free food. The male finch is more colorful than females. I see him more often at the feeder, so I suspect the little mother is sitting on eggs somewhere in the neighborhood. There is a bird's nest of some kind at the very top of a bottlebrush tree out front.


The dove’s nest is built
of twigs and straw and nothing else
but blind commitment.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

That is great that the pastors acknowledged the wrong doing in Arizona.
Our services in our Catholic parish go on as if no one has abused THOUSANDS of children for many years.
It makes me sick.
Which is why I no longer go.
Oh, don't get me started.
And as usual, I'm blown away again with your photos.

Anonymous said...

Jerral
I think of you often when I read things of experience life in a certain way, like the other day when I was reading early in the morning from my favorite devotion book Spiritual Literacy: Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life, by Frederick and Mary Ann Brussat (p. 27)

In the 1955 film Smoke, Auggie Wren manages a cigar store on the corner of Third Street and Seventh Avenue in Brooklyn.
Every morning at exactly eight o'clock, no matter what the weather, he takes a picture of the store from across the street.
He has four thousand consecutive daily photographs of his corner all labeled by date and mounted in albums.
He calls this project his "life's work."

One day Auggie shows the photos to Paul, a blocked writer who is mourning the death of his wife, a victim of random street violence.
Paul doesn't know what to say about the photos; he admits he has never seen anything like them.
Flipping page after page of the albums, he observs with some amazement, "They'r all the same."
Auggie watches him, then replies: "You'll never get it if you don't slow down, my friend."

The pictures are all of the same spot, Auggie points out, "but each one is different from every other one."
The differences are in the details: in the way people's clothes change according to season and weather,
in the way the light hits the street.
Some days the corner is almost empty; other times it is filled with people, bikes, cars, and trucks.
"It's just one little part of the world but things take place there too just like everywhere else," Auggie explains.
And sure enough, when Paul looks carefully at the by now remarkably uniqe.
Taylor

Anonymous said...

From Anton,
I am back to the office from the first part of May holidays. We had 3 days off due to the Labor Day. The Victory day is coming on May 9th and we will celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Victory. The day is no doubt a great day, but when I start thinking deeply about what had happened to the world I get upset...because I do not understand how people can be so cruel to each other... there is no family in Russia which did not suffer from the War. Every family lost someone in this great battle. So, I try not to watch TV this day as the more I think about the war the less sense I see in life...

About the good part: we planted the potatoes on Saturday. My sister and I woke up at half past 6 in the morning and made for our dacha. So, we came there early in the morning. How wonderful it was to celebrate the Spring listening to the song of the Nightingale! The air was so fresh and sound, the beginning of the day is perfect in Spring...you feel the Life, you feel the Nature and hence you feel the God.

Life is Good!