#AdventWord #Written

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Sand is a good writing medium. You’ve seen the photos on social media: a drone’s eye view of a marriage proposal or a love note stomped in sand. Advertiser’s use it, too, although their messages in the sand are AI generated, I’m sure. In fact, it’s such a popular concept you can now go to various platforms online and create a greeting card depicting a sand message signed by you! I prefer writings left in the sand by surf interacting with bits of shell and other beach detritus. One of the photos in my #TrackingTide series is titled “Peace Offering…

#AdventWord #Encouragement

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How can the petioles on a willow leaf be such bright red on a gloomy, misty day in December? How can the midrib of the leaf be such bright green, even as the margins are yellowing and the leaves themselves are dotted with the first rusty spots of dying? Hope springs eternal. Thanks for the encouragement, willow tree!

#AdventWord #Equity

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There’s something profound about coming eye-to-eye with a non-human creature, especially a wild one. It shrinks the distance between you and them, the species difference, the size difference, the physical differences, and more. Of course I don’t know exactly how the other creature experiences our encounter. I know I spooked a white-tail deer by locking eyes with her. Up went her flag and off she went. But she had good reason to be afraid. I was holding a compound bow with an arrow nocked. This barred owl, on the other hand, sat quietly and stared back at me and my…

#AdventWord #Counsel

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“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth,[a] and they will teach you, and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.”–Job 12:7-10 Dixie is a therapy horse, the very patient, calm, stable, non-reactive presence distressed children need. She came up to me to be petted. I happily obliged….

#AdventWord #Heed

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One October day in 2019, I turned north on Hwy 39, a.k.a. The Creole Nature Trail, headed home from the Gulf Coast of southwest Louisiana. The Pintail Wildlife Drive of Cameron Parish was on the right a few miles up the road, and I planned to visit before heading on home. But well before I reached the Drive, I spotted this Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) perched on top of a power pole clutching a large silver fish in its talons. As I am inclined to do upon such sightings, I hit the brakes and pulled to the side of the road….