Thoughts on Troubling Bird Behavior

For the past few days, a bright red robin has seemed rather intent on attacking my bedroom window. His behavior is bizarre. He will fly up and land on a branch just a foot or two from the window and then fly with all his wing power, beak forward for the kill, only to hit an immovable object and slide and fall to the ground. And then less than a minute later, blam! Again and again, over and over.

I have talked to people who seem to know more about birds than I do, as to why the little thing keeps on doing this. The general consensus seems to be that the creature observes a reflection of himself in the window as it acts like a mirror, since the inside of the house is darker than the bright daylight. Thus seeing what he must believe is another male bird in “his” territory, he becomes intent on removing the usurper and possible competition for the area females.

I don’t know how long this little drama will play out, but my thought is that the final outcome could possibly be the picture of his little red carcass, dead from repeated blows to his head, lying on the ground below the window.

Perhaps there is a moral to this story. It might be that the bird finally did manage to destroy his foe. The irony being that the enemy that he killed was himself.

Is there a parallel in human behavior? It appears that we humans tend to proceed to behave in ways that are detrimental to our bodies, our minds and ultimately our souls, albeit in ignorance and misperceptions, believing a lie for truth and seeing darkness as light, so that the “enemy” we finally destroy is actually ourselves.

In this season, as thoughts of the cross of the Christ and the glorious victory come to mind, the command from Jesus to take up our own cross and follow Him to His cross—to die to self and allow Him to live in us, to choose life in Him—becomes a preferred way to life so we don’t have to continue to have war with ourselves like that bird did.


David R. Snow

Oh, Yes: One More Thing We Need

I forgot one thing we need. Because of the generosity of people, we have rice. In fact, we have so much rice that we bought a 44 gallon trash container just to store the rice. That was not enough space, so we have about fifty pounds in a bin. So rice is not what we need. WE NEED GOOD RICE RECIPES! Those you have cooked forever, not those in a magazine that call for sixteen exotic ingredients available only in expensive grocery stores in metropolitan areas.

We will be waiting, saucepan in hand.

What We Need At My Friend's House

Some of you might be saying that we need things like organizational skills, less clutter, and more space. And you would be right. All those, however, will come in good time, hopefully. What we need right now is plastic bags. WalMart, Kroger, SuperOne, Brookshire's, whatever. So if you have any you need to part with, please let us have them.

 And thanks.

Much Progress, Thanks to Many Helpers

Thanks to many volunteers, most of them from Immanuel Baptist Church here in Marshall, we are getting closer to being open. Last Saturday, March 5, about thirty folks from IBC braved cool, almost cold temps to come en masse and work. Carrie and Jeff Bolt are the ringleaders for this mission group. Carrie has been here many days, scraping and painting. The white accents and porch that are now clearly visible in the picture are the work of Carrie and friends, mainly Carrie.

The deck (not visible in this picture), the ramp, the posts, and the back porch are the work of Jimmy Ford and his helpers. The pastor, Carlton Burris, installed a kitchen sink faucet very handily, as did David Harber and Philip Johnson with the electrical stuff. And this is my very favorite, because I absolutely detest this job: Carolyn Curry cleaned the toilets. Many others helped in many ways, and I apologize for leaving your names off--blame it on my being 72. That is as good an excuse as I have. Today we had a group of six (I think--they were moving too fast to count well) ETBU students who elected to stay here and work during their Spring Break just to help us!)

We owe a great debt of gratitude to all these folks.

We are just about ready to call the Health Department folks to come inspect the kitchen. Then we can open.

The picture was taken last week sometime. We need to take another now to show the beautiful trees budding and blooming in the background. Spring is in full bloom in East Texas. If we can survive the change to Daylight Savings Time, work will continue.

The picture below was taken when the able carpenters were removing the wall in front of four windows, covered sometime in the dim, distant past. The windows were painted black. After much useless scraping and several broken panes we finally got some stripper for the students to work on them today, and now the sunlight is flooding in, plus the view of the fields and trees is lovely.

Pray for the people of Japan.

Biggest Volunteer of the Week

 

This week has seen changes, progress, a few little problems, new folks interested and volunteers. The biggest volunteer helper was the big forklift that helped lift that little bitty Hesston tractor (that is a BIG tractor, actually) out of the mud. Dave was covering a drainpipe with the Hesston, and somehow--who knows how--got that tractor up to its eyeballs in mud. After valiant efforts by our construction workers and Dave, all to no avail, a company working nearby helped get it out ever so quickly. Sort of like a tiger pulling a kitten out of a well, according to an observer. I got there too late to get a picture of the stuck tractor. But you get the picture. Thanks, folks. This would have taken a long time with a shovel.

This is for the person who said the well picture was fuzzy. That beautiful clear blue sky is what we have had here for the last few days. Today was a gift--January 27 and 74 degrees. Lovely weather. Anyway, this is the rig. The blue stuff on the side is pipe (for those as ignorant as I about well drilling). They have reached about 10-11,000 feet deep now. How do I know this?  Because Dave loves to go down there and talk to drillers.

Today I was perusing Craigslist, as I am wont to do. Every few days I search for Marshall, thus pulling up items for sale or wanted, ones which would be close. We have a nice-looking washer donated by Dave's sister Joanne and her husband Jim, but we need a dryer. Thus the search. While I was looking, the phone rang with the news that someone was delivering a washer and dryer at that very moment. Have not received the name yet, but whoever you are, thank you ever so much.

Progress is slow, but steady. Hot water, a shower, heat, lights, stove--all those are realities. The director's apartment is nearing completion, and painting and patching continues. We had an energetic crew of youth attending a retreat at First Baptist Church. They helped tremendously, spreading hay in the yard, and moving a mountain of paint, tiles, and other items. Several of the girls washed many, many floor tiles that we had left over from remodeling houses. Now they are ready to lay. That will save a pile of money.

We have always used whatever materials were good, available, economical, and usable. There are many of those around, reducing the cost of completion considerably. Our local Habitat for Humanity has been extremely helpful, supplying building materials excess to the houses they build.

So here we are, almost February. What was it I was saying last fall?  That we would be in by Christmas?  Sure. I should know better by now.

Good night and God bless. He certainly has blessed this project. We pray for that to continue.

Maybe This Will Work Right Now . . . Or Not

This is a test to see if you are being notified of posts. For those of you who have asked, I would appreciate a response if you get a notification of this post.

Carolyn