NORTH-SOUTH OR EAST-WEST

"As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us." that was the memory passage I was reviewing today, I told Kinya.

I wonder if birds ever think about the direction they're flying, I thought as I saw a Great Blue Heron flying down the Tengan River in front of the house. After all, birds never use calendars or clocks to think about days or time. 

And does the Sparrow Hawk my sisters and I saw flying above the ocean just outside our hotel window notice, as a speaker once mentioned, that if you're flying "north-south", you end up flying in the opposite direction, but that verse says "east-west"; east is always east; west is always west. That never changes. Good to know, yes?

But I think that GBH was just looking for the Uken Beach which was at the end of the Tengan River.

WHARFS, WAVES, AND WHITE-EYED WARBLERS

A large wave broke on the rocks, sending a spray across the top. One of my sisters stopped in her tracks, hesitating. Should she walk onto the wharf? We 3 J's were taking advantage of the points Janice had accrued and had enjoyed an overnight stay at the Intercontinental. This morning, we were taking a walk outside before checking out and going home.

No doubt, the waves wouldn't bother buoys, I thought; they just bobbed up and down with them. People ought to be like them when sticky things come along and instead of trying to fight them, just "bob" along with them as best as possible. Or, as I watched a family along the beach unbothered by waves, just learn to wait it out and be patient until large problems can work out into smaller workable ones. Surfers stayed out in the deep. By the time the waves reached the shore, the ripples on the beach had become manageable, tame, even comfortable and pretty to look at.

There was still another way of being completely untouched by waves; by being one of the sparrow hawks that flew above the water. The principle here is not one of wanting to keep oneself from problems therefore to avoid people altogether; rather, to want to live a life of godliness therefore to ask God for help to live like those in the Bible who ran from sin--Pastor Nishino speaks of this like being magnets of the same power as sin, therefore repelling it. We should find no attraction in, want nothing to do with, temptation to sin; any more than substances of like magnetic force would find in each other. But I detected movement at the edge of the rocks where we stood, at the end of the wharf. Was that a...

Yes! It was the little olive bird with the white ring around its eye! Altho' the bird is usually hard to spot in foliage due to its coloring, this time, it seemed to come out for me. I pretended it was in response to my pleading, "c'mon let us see you sweetie; you're so pretty."

When we got home that afternoon, I noticed the same bird decorating the calendar. The Mejiro is popular among Japanese. But I gotta say, the feathered friend that posed for me on the wharf outside the hotel was prettier...or is that my imagination too?