Posts Tagged: "Debbie Blue"

Lent Day 37… There Is No Beauty Without Some Strangeness

There is no beauty without some strangeness. —Edgar Allen Poe

We’ve been in Portland for Spring break… It’s quirky, strange, beautiful, and 100% Northwest. There are bridges everywhere because, of course, there is water everywhere. We’re surrounded by green growing things and concrete and bricks and graffiti. It’s like a study in contrasts.

Today we visited Multnomah Falls. It’s 30 minutes or so outside the city, and it has that nature-is-in-charge-here kind of feel. Mist and moss, cliffs with water spilling over…

It’s just beautiful.

I took plenty of pictures. And I looked for new angles, perspectives—hoping to capture something less typical.

Later in the afternoon, we went back into the city. Somehow we ended up wandering around at the Hippo Hardware & Trading Company. It’s mostly a salvage warehouse of lights and knobs and bathroom fixtures. Some wild-haired older guy with a loud voice and stories to tell was working there.

Anyway, as I was wandering through the store, I saw… Read More

When Doves Cry

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Pigeon friend of mine, fly on, sing on. —Carl Sandburg

Last weekend in Maple Valley my family and I walked from the farmer’s market back home – through a neighborhood – and while we were walking, I could hear a distinct sound. One we’ve all probably heard before. It wasn’t loud, but it was present.

Like a subtle soundtrack. Music to set the scene. And yet it seemed unusual. A bit out of place or context. For a moment I tried to place the sound. And then I realized what it was…

The gentle cooing of doves.

Which did seem odd to me. Are there doves here?

My last experience with… Read More

Rethinking Beauty

*picture above: the edge of Lake Wilderness about .25 miles from my home – where we walk most days and regularly see bald eagles soaring above.

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My wife loves birds. For her birthday, I got her three books about birds – one of them was “Consider the Birds” by Debbie Blue. I’ve really enjoyed reading Debbie Blue in the past and thought this would be a great book for Shari.

Months later, Shari still hadn’t even cracked the Debbie Blue book open, so I took it. And, oh my goodness, it is spectacular. Debbie has a way of turning things upside-down and looking at them from the other side. Her knack at doing this is particularly fascinating in her approach to Scripture.

Her “Consider the Birds” book isn’t one that only birders would love. I found it to be incredibly thought-provoking, funny, and enlightening.

The chapter on “The Vulture: Ugliness And Beauty” was one of my favorites. Here’s a brief sampling…

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The Hebrew word nesher is often translate in our English versions of the Bible as “eagle,” but most scholars agree that “griffin vulture” is at least an alternative, if not a more fitting translation. As vultures became more loathsome to us English… Read More

Not Giving Allegiance To The Grid

You should see The Cruise. It’s a documentary about Timothy “Speed” Levitch, a completely not normal seeming guy, who’s a double-decker tour bus guide in Manhattan. There’s a great scene where he’s recalling a conversation he had with one of his tourists. He’d been talking to her about “the grid plan,” the layout of avenues and streets in square blocks all over Manhattan. Talking about how the grid plan emanates from a lie and how he’d really like to blow it up and rewrite the streets to be (as he puts it): “much more a self portraiture of our personal struggles rather than some real estate broker’s wet dream from 1807.”

timothy levitch picture bw

Apparently the tourist is a little taken aback. She says, “I never even thought of that. I can’t even imagine that. Everyone likes the grid plan. How could you not like the grid plan? It’s so functional. Everyone likes the grid plan.”

As he’s recalling this conversation in the film Levitch is really… Read More