Why I gotta make do what I make do

In the doctor's waiting room yesterday, I read a chapter from a book about a person trying to encourage a person with tuberculosis. She'd felt like giving up, but seeing the dried flowers gave her just the bit of extra energy she needed to keep going, she said. When this information came to light, of course more pressed flowers were made and sent whenever possible from then on!

On the way home, I wondered if I was seeing things--could that be a clump of pearlescent pink, orange, and purple dried flowers in the creek? But as I strained my eyes and looked more carefully, I realized it was the natural iridescence of the Japanese pigeon!

   

Altho' he wasn't thinking "TB", I saw a Eurasian coot (white-shield and partial-webbed bird) closer to the middle of the stream caring for its friend. After all, it stood guard while the friend preened.

We needed to say goodbye to the birdies and go home. I saw the rose-red hibiscus by the roadside but knew it was much too large to make anything with. (I have seen keyrings or bookmarks made with single hibiscus flower petals, however.) Maybe someday somebody will want me to make something like that for them too...

We'll All Look Different ONE DAY

I'd called him "My Funny Bird on Tengan River" and a few minutes ago found out he's called a black crowned night heron. Heron? But he's the size of a duck, and his legs are about 6 inches long. His beaks look sharp and pointy like a heron, but nothing else would've let me guess he's part of that bird family!

It was on the river that ran on the side of our new home in Okinawa I saw the bird. This week, I finally found out what he was. Mon, my sister Joyce drove me down that river towards the capital of Okinawa to apply for my passport renewal. The picture of myself ten years ago looks so different, I thought.

On the way back, she was kind enough to take the time to drive around the neighborhood where we'd grown up, and lots of old memories revived.

 

The way we found the place was because our home used to be behind a huge tomb. As we drove, we could see a little ways from the road--unkempt now because the custodian himself probably had need for a tomb himself--was a large stone structure.

"Joycie--the TOMB!" We turned up the narrow path and looked at the completely changed appearance of the place, the area around it. The only thing that looked the same was that you could look all the way down the hill and see the ocean.

So...we used to live...here?

When we got home, I saw a snail on the wall and almost said to it, "One Day, we're ALL going to look completely different.

You probably won't need to be lugging your house around on your back either."

I get in these moods.

A Lantern is Illumination too, isn't it?

Yesterday evening a friend treated me to a visit to Southeast Botanical Garden Illuminations. The lights at the park have earned it #2 in a nationwide review. Awed by the colored designs, laser shows, and timed programs, I wondered what the #1 entry was like.

Because we went after dark, I figured we wouldn't be seeing the baby animals, but while we were walking on our path, I heard the cry of water fowl and whipped my head around in the direction of the pond where the sound came from. Sure enough, I could barely make out the BLACK bird's WHITE face shield and bill!

And later in the walk, God showed me two waterfowl flying over the bridge to their nesting area in the reeds.

My sister Joyce and my friend were busy taking photographs of things in front of their cameras and could have no idea of the things that God brought before my eyes...

WAIT! I spotted a lone, beautiful white bird on the bridge just on the other side of them and decided to take a picture of it before it saw us coming and was scared away. But when my friend saw it too and walked toward it, I realized it's used to human beings, because it didn't fly away! 

Oh--I spotted the tiny "Lantern Hibiscus"--my friend told me it's called that because it hangs (unlike the popular bloom which sits on top of the branch and smiles up at you.) I know. I was invited to see Illumination, and I take pictures of a flower that hangs upside down. Some of us get excited about the strangest things.

This little lantern of mine, I'm gonna let it shine...maybe Jesus will hold me before His eyes too altho' I don't win special awards or anything.

CENTURION TO THE RESCUE

Here's that post I promised you about meeting my friend at the hibiscus flower.

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I'd thrown on a pair of thongs and rushed outside to get some pictures. In Okinawa, you see a lot more people running around in casual clothes and these rubber flip-flops. But these are special. They were probably bought at a Christian bookstore down in southern Okinawa. Can you guess why? Yup, the sign of the fish with the Greek letters inside for "Jesus Christ, Son of God" first century Christians used to identify themselves! "How beautiful are the feet of them..."

I got carried away. I put on those things and trotted 

across the street to the shady area near the river to get a good picture of my favorite little hibiscus.I told you, it isn't the vibrant blood-red you see in most tourist photographs but a delicate red with white streaks. But the one I was trying to photograph seemed to be jiggling, wasn't it?  A worm! A teeny, tiny worm with a bright red head seemed to want to be photographed too,

He let go of the bloom...and I realized he joined a few of his buddies on the ground. Their flowers had wilted or been severed from the tree for some reason so sent them falling. I hadn't noticed the gray-black spagetti-stubs lying there until this one joined them. I saw red ends lift up then as they began to move. When it reached the white rail nearby, I dared get up close and take another picture.

"Hi. I'm Cenchi (Centimeter Worm). You met my cousin, Inchy (Inch Worm) in Iwatsuki." Nice meeting you, but as you can see, I'm kinda busy right now, so I'll get back to you, ok?"

A human bugged a worm? First time for everything.