favorable conditions…

“We are always falling in love or quarreling,
looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering,
following public affairs.
If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other
to end before we can really get down to our work.
The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly
that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable.
Favorable conditions never come.”

C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory


(a local acorobate dangles upside down on a birdfeeder munching on my blueberries/ Julie Cook / 2020)

I love this quote by C.S.Lewis don’t you?
Isn’t it just so us, so now, so today?

Favorable conditions never come…do they?—
Especially when one is out to find the facts and the truth.

These days, both facts and truth, are collateral damage…
Not many folks are interested in such.
They prefer a fluid sort of something that is quite far from fact or truth.

So those of us who really want to seek out such, that being the knowledge of actual
facts and truth…
well, we simply can’t wait around for the perfect conditions or for the planets
and the heavens to align.
Not now, not today.

So before we tackle such topics…let’s take another day for just ourselves…
let’s take a small reprieve from the heaviness of our times
and let’s peek at what’s going on in God’s realm


(our wee beastie gives us a wee peek / Julie Cook / 2020)


(female hummingbird resting inbetween darting and dashing from feeder to feeder / Julie Cook / 2020)


(a hawk hummingbird moth …who knew of such / Julie Cook / 2020)


(black swallowtail / Julie Cook / 2020)


(a gulf fritillary / Julie Cook / 2020)


(a gulf fritillary / Julie Cook / 2020)


(a gulf fritillary / Julie Cook / 2020)


(even a moth gets in on the act / Julie Cook / 2020)


(a gulf fritillary that is on his last wing…/ Julie Cook / 2020)

But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish in the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know
that the hand of the Lord has done this?
In his hand is the life of every creature
and the breath of all mankind.

Job 12:7-10

hectic days

I am disturbed when I see the majority of so-called Christians having such little understanding
of the real nature of the faith they profess.
Faith is a subject of such importance that we should not ignore it
because of the distractions or the hectic pace of our lives.

William Wilberforce

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(a snowberry clearwing moth visits the butterfly bush / Julie Cook / 2016)

Ok…
So it’s Friday and it’s back to Atlanta taking Dad to yet another doctor.
They want to do surgery next week but the question is whether or not Dad is strong enough…
So it’s off to see if he is anemic and / or dehydrated…
as well as to consider all viable options…

But until life slows down, allowing me to focus a bit more on the meat and potatoes of this little blog, I wanted to share a few photos of a most unusual visitor to the yard.

The images are of the Snowberry Clearwing Moth—also known as the hummingbird moth or the flying lobster.
I like it, the flying lobster…
sounds like some sort of crazy daredevil or fighter plane…

At first glance, I thought I was seeing some sort of unusual bee…
as it’s coloring was that of a bumble bee.
Yet with it’s long body and that even longer proboscis, I knew this bee wannabe was most certainly something other than bee or wasp.

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(a snowberry clearwing moth visits the butterfly bush / Julie Cook / 2016)

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14

Falling comfortably back into place

“This is the place of places and and it is here.”
Gertrude Stein

“Therefore, the places in which we have experienced daydreaming reconstitute themselves in a new daydream, and it is because our memories of former dwelling-places are relived as day-dreams that these dwelling-places of the past remain in us for all time.”
― Gaston Bachelard

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(the first “hummer” of the season is back home / Julie Cook / 2015)

When life has been demanding and there seems to be no time to self. . .
No time for. . .
noticing,
reflecting,
observing,
savoring. . .
No moments of a luxuriously exhaled Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. . .

It is at just that precise moment. . .that single moment between breaking apart and holding on. . .
when eyes have glazed over,
nerves are at their rawest
and stress is out the roof. .
At that very and utter almost unbearable, catastrophic, breaking moment,
it is then. . .that it happens. . .
The familiar, the comforting, the nostalgic slips gently back into place. . .

An old familiar friend returns.
You find that long forgotten item of fuzzy feelings and internal warmth.
Happy loving memories come flooding to the forefront of the heart.
It is at that single miraculously wonderful moment that suddenly. . .all is once again,
right with the world. . .and you find that you can hang on one more day. . .

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(foraging cardinal / Julie Cook / 2015)

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(a tufted titmouse enrobed within the new spring foliage / Julie Cook /2105)