The Future

Since my midteens I have wrestled with the concept of the future and determinism. If the future is fixed, how can there be accountability? If God has already determined what will happen and laid out the course of my life, am I just going through the motions? I believe that in order for life to be worth living, there has to be some element of surprize, even for God. God may know the probabilites of what we creatures will do and when the odds are high, God will even know the outcome. If we pay attention, so will we. We pretty much know what will happen if we drop a fragile glass bowl onto the pavement from a 200 story building. But I think that things become fuzzier as the odds go closer to 50-50. Then an element of chance comes to play.

In the book The Alchemist, by Paolo Coelho, a camel driver consults a seer and the seer raises the question of why he would even want to know the future:

Then, one day, the oldest seer he had ever sought out (and the one most to be feared) had asked why the camel driver was so interested in the future.
“Well . . . so I can do things,” he had responded. “And so I can change those things that I don’t want to happen.”
“But then they wouldn’t be a part of your future.” the seer had said.
“Well, maybe I just want to know the future so I can prepare myself for what is coming.”
“If good things are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise,” said the seer. “If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur.”
“I want to know about the future because I’m a man, the camel driver had said to the seer. “And men always live their lives based on the future.

Hummingbird

The hummingbird is back outside my office window. Wave petunias are beginning to blossom in the window box and the tiny being, attracted by red, comes to drink sweet nectar. The days are still cool and the nights downright chilly, but the little hummingbird seems to find enough to stoke its inner furnace.
Last summer one came and hovered close to the window nearly every morning until frost took away the flowers, but I was never able to capture it with the camera. Hummingbirds always seem to know when the camera is focused on them. They will buzz right up to you and land on your red shirt, mistaking you for a flower. But --sit quietly with a camera focused on the flowers where they have been drinking nectar just a moment ago and they will hide from you and your red shirt. It was rare for me to be able to snap this photo of one in Evergreen, Colorado last August.

Lilac time

Lilacs are ready to explode like popcorn. The yard is fragrant and filled with the song of the phoebe. This is our second spring here in the rolling hills of Wisconsin and we have learned where not to put the garden! Last year the vegetables were a bust, so this year we tilled up a new garden in a sunny spot and planted it with peas, beans, radishes, and lettuce. Today we set out tomatoes, peppers, and kohlrabe. We put in 5 lb. of seed potatoes. I'm already dreaming about new potatoes - the way you dig into the soil and find them like surprises. You never know how big the potatoes will be until you dig and then you find tiny ones like marbles in the same dirt as potatoes the size of your fist. No matter what the size, they always taste creamy sweet.