Today I stood in the exact same spot I stood in seven years ago to make this photo of a White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis). And today, like then, I was standing in that spot as a participant in the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. That December day in 2018, we counted birds from dawn to dark and saw probably a dozen white-throated sparrows, plus several individual birds of several other species of sparrow. Today we counted birds from dawn to dark, covered the same ground, and did not see a single sparrow! Do I need to repeat that? Today my…
Category: #AdventWord
#AdventWord #Robes
In the biblical story of the prodigal son, the wayward boy returns to his father straight from feeding leftovers to pigs in a field. We are not told what he was wearing, but… my sibs and I did that growing up on an Iowa farm. We called it “slopping the hogs,” and I assure you, we wore our crudest farm chore clothes to do it. It was as dirty a job as it sounds! We are told that the loving father greeted his son by immediately commanding a servant to bring the finest robe and put it on him. Maybe…
#AdventWord #Cleansed
Cleaning windowsBlue spray and squeegeeGrey clouds from cold dark days pastBeads of grey blood raceToward the windowpaneWipe away dark memoriesSqueaking S-shaped strokesExposed and nakedTransparent windows lookingOut upon a worldTime to put those blindsFloating on by unhinderedCurtains and plants back–William McGarvey It’s Advent. Time to leave the blinds off, to let them float on by unhindered. Let in the light. People who work in the public eye get my respect, which I try to show by making pictures of them working. If they see me and respond to me and my camera, that’s great! But sometimes they can’t. This man is…
#AdventWord #Highway
When life overwhelms, find a highway carpeted with leaves and dashed with sunlight to make your way through, for the way through is the only way.
#AdventWord #Recompense
It is quite pretty from below. So, look up as you climb the central staircase of the public library of Chicago. When you get to the top, pause. Consider. Reflect. Witness recompense for human folly, measured in dog tags, a pair for every U.S. soldier who died in Vietnam. I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. –Dwight D. Eisenhower
Edge & Essence 