creation... repulsive

To back up for a moment...

Bonaventure's second step in our journey to God was to judge those vestiges of nature, which we call animals.

When I posted on facebook that I had found a tick on me a few weeks back, a friend asked if ticks have any redeeming value.

When I see a tick on me, I am not joyous. When a bear stopped me one day while I was bicycling as a young man... I knew enough to avoid a close encounter.

I once read a book on places in the world where humans are not on the top of the food chain... places with tigers, brown bear, and a couple other critters. Not many such places left, which though I find sad, just doesn't shock me that humans have killed those that kill us.

So I feel we should be repulsed by the sight of certain animals, but are they are redeeming...

In the game of rock, paper, scissors; if you remove one item, you remove another because it will always lose. Nature is like that, remove one, and another will lose out.

It doesn't mean I will allow a tick to feed on me so that the bacteria that causes Lymes disease will not go extinct. But there was a day when ticks and tigers kept our population from growing exponentially and some may say that was a good thing. I just may agree with them, but be glad I can walk the streets without fear of being eaten.

Today two very young deer were dancing about in my vegetable garden at work. Were they cute, most definitely. However, so far this spring my lettuce, radishes, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans... all have been devastated by ground hogs and deer. It has never been so bad and what worked in the past is failing to protect the crops now.

and so I am ready to say, "you win," and quit trying to win the battle. I guess it is better than being eaten by a grizzly. and I do dig onions, garlic and herbs which the varmints do not like. Who knows, maybe I can use all my left over vegetable seeds to feed those dancing deer?

Play Yourself: Bonaventure meets Thelonious Monk

Between work and meeting up with folk at Holy Trinity in Lansdale last night, maybe it would have been better to do what I did when I got home from the church. I finished Robin D. G. Kelley's biography of Monk.

Saturday night I took a break from that book to read the next chapter in Bonaventure, and as often has been the case, I am initially at a loss at where Bonaventure is taking me and why I wanted to travel with him. But now I think I know.

Monday driving home from work... "don't worry about where it took Bonaventure, be concerned with where it will take you." The message to me was what Thelonious Monk told musicians who asked to see the music. "Play yourself"

God doesn't want us to make Bonaventure's journey, but just may want us to play ourselves to the melody that took Bonaventure to God. So I plan to sit and contemplate the words we have come to associate with God...

When Bonaventure played...

within all things, but not enclosed
outside all things, but not excluded
above all things, but not aloof
below all things, but not debased...

as was said to Moses:
I will show you all good.

and when Monk played a beautiful melody by himself...

Bonaventure, more after Monday thoughts

From what I read out loud to my friends on Monday, what lingers the most is the voice inside of me that lets me know when I could have handled a situation better.

today at work I sent an e-mail expressing some thoughts, I could have conversed, but it seemed best to... How do we know what is best? How do we know anything for certain? How do we decide if our actions are good?

So I left Monday night with some things to think about, but I also have wondered if I led the group in the direction to avoid a deep darkness.

Two Mondays ago I spoke of trying to imagine the pain of others as a way to help us respond to it. I spoke of an example of stretching myself into a place that is far from my own life and experiences.

However, a friend is in pain, and I don't have to imagine as hard this time. I have been there, and maybe I was not wanting to feel that pain again. Sunday night's read of Bonaventure had one sentence jump out at me and made me think of my friend's pain ...

Bonaventure says,

When one has fallen down.

he must lie there

unless someone lend a helping hand for him to rise.

Do I know for sure that I went the wrong direction Monday night... No, but it kind of feels that way. Am I moving in the right direction now... possibly.

of Birds and Bonaventure

Vestiges, Bonaventure says we are surrounded by vestiges. Open your eyes to creation and you will see living signs that God has been there. Contemplate the nature of the creature and you will start your journey to God.

I dig birds, so when I read chapter two of Bonaventure three weeks ago just before I went to church my mind went to...

leaping for joy when I first saw a Pileated Woodpecker... I was in NC with a great bunch of friends, who went to the mountains for spring break.

a flock of Bobolinks that said, "hey look at us, " after not one had shown their face to me since the first spring of birdwatching when I was 13... I was alone at Valley Forge on my 33rd birthday.

a yellow-bellied woodpecker that said. "hey, would you rather enjoy my beauty or have your job cause your head to explode,"... I chose beauty.

The Gold Finches who perch on spires of anise hyssop and say, "thanks, for not having a grass lawn"

and the memories kept coming and coming and coming. And I wanted to share them with my group of friends at Holy Trinity, but we canceled that Monday and we never got to Bonaventure the next Monday, but three days ago... I told some of my stories...

and now in three days I have more

the catbird that made a trip to the garbage cans more interesting.

the friend who I gave a description of a bird as we pulled into her driveway, and 20 seconds later I turned the pages to show her a Rose-Breasted Grossbeak in my bird book.

another friend that said "what" as we stood outside at work then directed his eyes to the words I said, so that he could see a White-breasted Nuthatch on a Silver Maple.

and the robins that attacked a squirrel in the front yard across the street this morning as I walked to my car.

15 years ago I set out to see a hundred birds by the last day of the school year. The day I reached my goal, I got to work for a message to call Mosaic Woman. She told me that my grandmother had died. As I flew home to Pennsylvania, I read that Emily Dickinson once wrote that the dead visit us through birds.

Today I walked through Lansdale with Mosaic Woman, who now after walking through half her life with me, shows me birds. and my eyes are directed to a hawk perched on a church tower above the door where I returned to a journey with God.