I apologize for that, but I just don’t know what else to call this.  Chloe has a cold.  I never knew a dog could get a cold.  It has been typical of a human cold.  She felt miserable for two or three days, and then she started coming out of it, once again running to greet us when we step outdoors, and racing the couple hundred yards to the gate to meet us when we come home.  And, just like a human cold, the runny nose lingers on.  She never coughed or that would have lingered too, just as Keith’s has for over three months now.
            But this nose thing is almost intolerable.  Let me put it like this:  when a dog blows its nose, you had better stand way back. 
            She comes out every morning trying to clean out her pipes, clearing her throat and spitting, blowing her nose and sneezing--just like her master, except he knows to use a handkerchief.  Chloe on the other hand looks just plain disgusting. 
            I am sure you remember how it was when your toddler had a cold and you couldn’t follow him around all day wiping his nose.  You really did have diapers to wash, and meals to fix, and floors to mop, and on and on, a never ending list.   Suddenly he would come running to share with you a tot-sized marvel, and you would look up and, even if you didn’t say it, you would think, “Gross!” and grab a Kleenex to wipe up what was, um, hanging.  Well, with a dog, multiply that several times--and add a few inches. 
            And just like a child, Chloe most certainly does not appreciate it when you wipe her nose.  She has learned to recognize the restroom variety brown paper towels that hang on the carport, and runs when she sees one in Keith’s hand.  As much as I hate to do it to her, when she flees to me for help, I grab her collar and hold her still so he can indeed, clean up that repulsive little schnozzle.  I found out the hard way what happens if you don’t.  Not only will she sneeze on you, but she will then wipe that nose all by herself--on your hem, or your shirtsleeve, or your jeans, or whatever else she can reach, mixed in with whatever dust or dirt she has lain in.  It is repulsive and the only way it comes off is in the washing machine.
            Are you thoroughly grossed out now?  What do you think when you see a friend with a bad case of sin?  Do you act like it isn’t there?  Are you afraid of losing him to correction?  Do you sympathize with him if anyone does care enough to try to help, joining in your friend’s criticism of their methods, their words, even their motivation—as if you could read minds?  Do you just go along like nothing has happened, like it won’t make any difference to them or you or anyone else?
            Sin is disgusting, especially in someone who claims to live a life of purity.  It will keep him from eternal life just as surely as a nose full of snot will keep a child from breathing well.  It will drip all over him in one disgusting glob and affect the lives of others who see him.  And if you stay too close, it will get on you too.  How can it not?
            Think about that special friend right now.  Everyone has one—someone you love who has lost his way.  Are you going to allow your friend to continue in this revolting situation, or do you love him enough to grab a spiritual paper towel and wipe his nose?
 
But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh, Jude 1:20-23.
 
Dene Ward

I have a feeling that some of Bella and Chloe’s playtime might have been a little unsettling to Bella’s youngest master.  Young wild animals learn survival skills through play—how to hunt and how to fight.  Even domesticated animals learn some of these things.  Puppies always engage in rough and tumble play, including baby nips and growls.  Chloe and Bella did the same, and being larger and older, it looked much fiercer.
            Teeth bared, growls ferocious, their muzzles tilted back and forth as if trying to find the best place to lock onto one another.  Larger Bella ran at Chloe and broadsided her, sending her rolling, then pounced on top.  In seconds, more experienced Chloe had her legs wrapped around Bella and flipped her over, like a wrestler reversing a pin.  Sometimes they ran headlong into one another like charging bulls and as they met, the saliva flew in all directions.  I learned to stand way back.
            How did I know this wasn’t real, that it was simply an older dog teaching a younger through play?  Because they never drew blood.  If you watched their mouths, neither ever closed tightly on the other dog’s body anywhere.  And when they finished, they stood panting for a few moments, energy spent, both tongues dangling toward the ground, looking at one another.  Often they would touch noses, then walk shoulder to shoulder back to the shade, Chloe under the truck and Bella under a tree—lesson for the day over.
            I remember a time when brethren could discuss things, even differing views on a passage, and each come away having learned something.  They could trust one another, not only to have each other’s best interest at heart, but also to listen and consider fairly, and never to become angry.  Even if voices rose, no blood was drawn, spiritually speaking, respect continued, and both left with more knowledge and insight.
            What has happened to us?  If someone disagrees with me, it makes me mad or it hurts my feelings, and either way I don’t like him any more.  It is no longer about learning and growing—it about winning arguments and putting people down.  Instead of being able to trust a person because he is a brother, one must try to find a brother he can trust, and it isn’t easy.  That’s not just a shame, it’s a tragedy.  If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment have we from him, that he who loves God love his brother also. 1 John 4:20-21
            God meant us to learn and grow together, honing our skills and building one another up.  It might make us occasional sparring partners, but in that sparring we learn how to handle the word more accurately, we learn how to defeat the gainsayers who deny the Lord, and the false teachers who might be after our souls.  And after that sparring match, we “touch gloves” and leave with our love and respect intact.
            At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
 
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17
 
Dene Ward

We had a second stint of puppysitting recently and this time Chloe adapted more quickly.  By the end of the first day, she and now six month old Bella were romping together in the field.  Chloe was still the boss and called the shots—including the play schedule—but play they did, especially in the evenings when Chloe would crawl out from under the porch, stretch, look over her shoulder at Bella and scamper off with a toss of the head—an open invitation to “catch me if you can.”
            Bella also came with us when I gave Chloe her morning walk around the property.  Chloe usually accompanies me in a steady trot, stopping here and there to sniff at an armadillo hole or a depression at the bottom of the fence where a possum makes its nightly excursions.  Bella preferred to run everywhere, usually in the meandering lines of Billy, the little boy in the Family Circus comic.  Then when she suddenly looked up and found herself behind, she would come bulling her way past us in a brown blur.
            It was one of those times that particular morning and I heard her overtaking us like a buffalo stampede.  The path at that point was narrow, just room for me, my two walking sticks, and Chloe.  As Bella drew near, I just happened to be looking down when she very neatly leapfrogged over Chloe without disturbing a fur on her head.  In a few seconds she was around the bend and out of sight.
            I wonder how many we leapfrog over every day and leave in the dust behind us because we’re too impatient to wait, too unconcerned to care, too impulsive to even notice?  Sometimes the young with their new ideas, scriptural though they may be, have too little respect for the old warriors who need time to consider and be sure.  Sometimes the more knowledgeable become too arrogant to slow their pace for the babes or those whose capacity may not be as deep.  Sometimes the strong forget that God expects them to help the weak, the ill, the faltering.  All these people are just obstacles in our way, things to get past in our rush.
            When you leapfrog over a brother and leave him behind, how do you know he will make it?  God didn’t expect us to walk the path alone.  He meant for us to walk it together.  When you lack the love to walk it with your brother, you may as well not walk it at all.
 
Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me. Romans 15:1-3.
 
Dene Ward

We are puppysitting for some friends, a four month old chocolate lab named Bella.  She is already taller than our full-grown Australian cattle dog, though not as heavy, a long-legged gangly dog still with a puppy mindset—which means faster is better than slower, all things are meant to be chewed upon, and play time is the only time. 
            Chloe, on the other hand, is middle-aged, 6½, or about 45 in dog years.  To her the best things in the world are a belly scratch, a chewy treat, and a nap, and one of the worst things in the world is a puppy being foisted upon her carefully controlled domain.  She learned quickly that Bella has difficulty getting under the truck—something about all those long knobby leg bones getting in the way—so she spends the vast majority of her day there while Bella roams about being a curious puppy.  Someone I know well has learned not to leave things lying about outside if he doesn’t want them ventilated with puppy-teeth holes, something I consider an unexpected benefit to Bella’s visit.
            Chloe is not a purely sedentary lap dog, though.  She enjoys nosing around some, and will run back and forth to the gate to greet us.  She walks around the property with me and often leaves me in the dust when she spies something interesting in the corner woods.  Bella is walking with us now.  Her nose is always in the air, and her ears cocked for any sounds that might drift our way—one neighbor’s baying bloodhound and the other’s crowing rooster, for example.  But she doesn’t listen long.  As soon as she determines the direction, she is off in a shot while Chloe listens a bit more, making a studied determination about whether the sound needs investigating or not.
            Bella thinks everything is a game.  She has no ability to distinguish when it’s time to be serious.  Chloe will stop for a drink and Bella will be all over her, standing in the water, stepping on the edge of the pan, causing it to tilt and spilling the water everywhere.  When a frog jumps in the old tubs Keith uses to soak his hickory wood for smoking meat, she jumps right in after it, NOT looking before she leaps, landing belly deep with a splash.  Reminds me of the puppy we had once who thought the rattlesnake next to the woodpile was a toy and tried to play with it.  We managed to get him away before he was bitten, but when we left for a camping trip, the neighbor found him one morning with fang marks in his neck.  Lucky for him, the skin there was loose and that’s all the snake got, not the muscle in his neck.
            Yet despite their own preferences, both of these dogs are adapting.  Chloe finally learned to quit running away and stand up for herself.  After a nip or two on the nose, Bella knows who the boss is now and she will actually “bow” before Chloe, lowering her height by crouching on her belly in front of her.  Chloe will now stand nose to nose with her, sniffing, and then suddenly take off in a run, looking behind to make sure Bella is chasing her.  Bella has learned to be a little more discreet and Chloe has learned that fun is still—well, fun, and it’s worth having some once in awhile.
            Older and younger people—older and younger Christians, no matter their physical age—need to learn from one another in the same way.  We teach our children not to go running down the halls, especially among older people who have issues with balance and might be knocked over.  A fall for the elderly could easily lead to a broken bone, and how many broken bones have led to a fatal case of pneumonia?  That’s not something a child would ever think of, which is why the adults must teach them.  In the same way, babes in Christ mustn’t go running helter-skelter down our spiritual halls with no concern about the fragile souls we might encounter.  Yet, the older ones need to learn that we must go out into those halls and encounter those souls, not sit quietly and safely in our pews.
            The younger must learn the need for wisdom and discretion and the value of quiet reverence, but the older must learn that “emotion” is not a four letter word. 
            The younger must learn respect for those they label “nay-sayers.”  They must realize that those old “fuddy-duddy” cautions come from concern for their younger souls’ safety and good, not from cowardice or a lack of faith.  The older must remind themselves that God called them to take a risk, to exercise their faith not to sit in dusty rooms discussing it.
            The younger in the faith and the older in the faith—we learn from each other, but not if we’re too busy putting one another down, refusing to listen to one another, with attitudes full of disrespect and disdain. 
 
The glory of young men is their strength, but the beauty of old men is their gray hair, Prov 20:29.
 
Dene Ward

     At the rented house on the shore over in Gulf Breeze, Florida, we enjoyed sitting by the bay watching the pelicans on the pilings nearby.  One morning our son called out, "Mom bring the binoculars!"  So I dutifully brought those glasses that I keep handy even more than ever these days, and stepped out onto the stone patio lining the bank.  "Look out by the pelicans in the water," he urged.
     I did as directed, watching the half dozen pelicans that had left their manmade perches and dropped into the water.  It was obvious what they were doing.  The water around them roiled with activity beneath the surface and the birds constantly poked their whole heads under, coming up with fish after fish.  Then suddenly I saw what he wanted me to see—fins!  A small pod of dolphins had joined the fray, surfacing here and there for a breath, eating alongside the pelicans. 
     I wondered about that.  Here they were right beside one another, in fact, the pelicans often swam between and around the surfacing fins.  One set of eaters was avian and the other mammalian.  One set was considerably larger.  One could descend several feet and the other only float.  Yet they never got in one another's way, never fought over a fish, and never even swam away in fright.  They got along and everyone ate their fill.
     Even these days, when so many seem to think we have finally been enlightened, we have trouble doing those things.  Sometimes it's race, sometimes it's nationality, sometimes it's even which part of the country you hail from.   Sometimes it's how much money you make and which neighborhood you live in.  To our shame, sometimes it's politics.  Yet we have so much more in common than a pelican and a dolphin.  One has fins, the other wings.  If they were humans, my experience tells me that would be enough to fight about.  What is wrong with us?
     Here is what matters:  We are all sinners depending upon the grace of God.  We all rely upon a God who emptied Himself and became a Jewish man, a carpenter, blue collar at best, who died on our behalf.  We are all saved because He rose from the dead and offered us a way to do the same.
      Some of us are pelicans and some are dolphins, but it really doesn't matter which is which.  Let's all just get along, eat our fill when we assemble, and help one another along the way, because none of us is better than the other in any form or fashion.

For you are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for you all are one man in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise (Gal 3:26-29).

Dene Ward

I’ve heard it all my life:  you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.  Imagine my surprise to find out you can catch quite a few flies with vinegar after all. 
            I read it in a cooking magazine.  Most gnats are fruitflies.  If you are having trouble with gnats in your kitchen, fill a small dish with vinegar, squeeze a drop of two of dishwashing liquid on it and set it out where you have the most gnats.  What interests a fruitfly is the vinegars formed in the rotten fruit, and that bowl of vinegar spells “rotten fruit” to their little sensory receptors.  Because of the surface tension on water, a fruitfly can land and not sink, but that drop of dishwashing liquid breaks the tension.  They land and sink, drowning immediately.
            I put one of these dishes out one day and an hour later found 18 little black specks lying on the bottom, never to buzz in my house again.  Now, every summer, I have two or three custard cups of apple cider vinegar lying around my house, and far fewer gnats than ever before.
            One of the cups sits on the window sill next to the chair that overlooks the bird feeder.  That bird feeder attracts more than its fair share of gnats in the summer too, and I have a suspicion that most of the gnats in the house sneak through the cracks around that window.  The screen is gone so I can see the birds better and the double window is up a foot so I have a place for my coffee cup on the sill.  That lack of triple protection means they can get in easier than anywhere else in the house except an open door.
            So the other afternoon I sat down to rest a bit after canning a bushel of tomatoes.  Keith was emptying the residual garbage pails of skins and seeds, and dumping the heavy pots of boiling water outside so the house wouldn’t heat up yet more from the steam.  I had just replaced the vinegar in the dish a few minutes before. 
            A gnat suddenly buzzed my face and I shooed it away.  He came back, but this time he headed straight for the window.  “Aha!” I thought.  If I just sat still I could see how it actually happened.  It was a real life lesson.
            He had gotten “wind” of the vinegar somehow and flew over to check it out at a prudent distance of eight or ten inches, which is several thousand times the body length of a gnat I imagine, and was certainly safe.  He flew away, but within a few seconds he was back.  This time he flew a little closer, maybe half the distance he had before.
            That happened several times with the gnat coming in closer and closer on each pass.  Finally, he landed on the window sill a couple of inches from the custard cup.  I could just imagine him sitting there tensed up and waiting for something to happen, then finally relaxing as he discovered that whatever danger he had imagined wasn’t there. 
            He flew again, but not away.  This time he hovered over the cup, doing figure eights two or three inches above the surface of the vinegar.  Then he landed on the lip of the custard cup.  At that point I imagine the fumes from the fresh vinegar were nearly intoxicating.  All that rotten fruit right down there for the taking, and besides, he had never had trouble before landing on a piece of bruised, decaying fruit, and this one was obviously an apple, one of the best.
            So he flew yet again, circling closer and closer to the surface.  “Now,” he must have thought as he landed on what he was sure was a solid chunk of overripe Macintosh, or Jonathan, or Red Rome, and promptly sank into the vinegar.  He didn’t even wiggle—it was over that fast, his drowning in what he thought was safe, in a place where nothing bad had ever happened to him before. 
            It works this way for humans too, you know.  What are you hovering over today?
 
Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, When it sparkles in the cup, When it goes down smoothly: At the last it bites like a serpent, And stings like an adder. Proverbs 23:31-32.
Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse: He who keeps his soul shall be far from them, Proverbs 22:5.
 
Dene Ward
 

We had no land when we first moved to the country and were forced to rent a house in the hamlet nearby.  We were only in that big old frame house for 5 months, but I will never forget it.  Uneven flooring, tall drafty ceilings, and, when we moved in, no heat and no running water.  It was January 1st.  We sat around the table in hats and coats eating oatmeal or soup for every meal, and hauling water in buckets.  Eventually the truck company next door let us hook our garden hose to their well spigot.  We pulled the hose through an inch wide gap under the kitchen window and ran it into the sink beneath, which at least made the haul shorter. 
            After about a week the well man came out and fixed the pump, and the gas man filled the tank.  Still it wasn’t warm.  Room-sized gas space heaters in the bathroom, kitchen, and living room did little to mollify the effects of fifteen foot ceilings and cracks between the planks in the floor through which we could see the ground three feet beneath.  It was the coldest winter I remember in this area—but maybe it was just that house.
            When early spring rolled around I remember standing on the back stone steps in the sun—probably for the warmth.  Keith was on his haunches petting the dog, a black and brown mixed breed we had picked up at the pound a year earlier and named Ezekiel.  The boys were standing next to him listening, probably to some daddy advice.  They were 4 and 2, oblivious to our living conditions, and perfectly happy. 
            Suddenly the breeze picked up and over the house something floated down out of the sky and landed across Keith’s shoulders, hanging down on each side of his chest.  It was a snakeskin.  When we figured out what it was, he couldn’t get it off fast enough.  It must have been four feet long, with perfect scale imprints all along its length.  It creeped me out, as the kids say these days.  I still shudder when I think of it.  Maybe that’s why I still remember that house so well.
            I remembered that house and that event again recently when we passed a fifty gallon drum by the woodpile and there lying across it was another perfect snakeskin, three feet long, hanging over each side of the barrel.  They still give me the creeps when I see them, or the heebie jeebs, or whatever you choose to call that horrible feeling that runs down your spine, makes you shiver to your shoes and your hair stand on end.  Maybe it’s because I know that somewhere nearby there is a real snake.  I can’t pretend there aren’t any out there simply because I haven’t seen one lately.
            I’m sure you could make a list of things that give you that feeling.  What worries me is that nowhere on anyone’s list is the three letter word “sin.”  It ought to give us the creeps to be around it, to see its effects on the world, people fulfilling their every lust, their hearts full of hate and envy and covetousness, lying as easily as they breathe.  It ought to make us shiver to hear the Lord’s name taken in vain from nearly every mouth, even children, or the coarse, crude, vulgar language that passes for conversation—and entertainment!-- these days.  Why?  Because you can be positive the Devil is somewhere nearby.  He’s just waiting to drop out of nowhere and drape his arm around your shoulder.  Before you know it, you will be dressing like everyone else, talking like everyone else, and acting like everyone else.  In short, you will be like everyone else, walking around swathed in snakeskin, hugging it to yourself instead of ripping it off in disgust.  
            Don’t think it can’t happen to you, especially if sin doesn’t give you the creeps to begin with. 
 
The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate... Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph…Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good, Prov 8:13; Amos 5:14,15; Rom 12:9.
 
Dene Ward

We had a pleasant surprise this year.  Besides the usual wrens’ nest in every odd place you can imagine, we had two hawks’ nests.  Two!  Hawks are very territorial, but they had set up their nests on opposite sides of the property, one just inside the east fence, and one just inside the west fence, as far from each other as they could possibly be and still be on our property.
            We have learned a lot about these birds and knew when to start listening for baby hawk noises.  Finally one morning we realized the mother was no longer in the east nest.  We peered long with the binoculars and called up to the nest.  Nothing.  A few days later we finally saw the dirty white downy baby head and the big black eyes.   
            After another week the baby sat up tall and we had a clear view for the first time.  It isn’t a hawk—it’s an owl!  A barred owl.  Although they usually have one or two siblings, this one appears to be an only child.  Its mother usually sits nearby on a low branch in a live oak arching over the run, a two foot high chunky brown and gray bird with a round head and no ear tufts, horizontal bars across its shoulders and vertical streaks running down its chest.  In the evenings she flies to the garden and sits on a tomato post, just as the hawks have done for years now, occasionally swooping down to the ground to find dinner for the nestling. 
            The hawks have hatched now as well, two downy white babies that sit in the nest and peer over at me when I make the trek to the west side of the property to talk with them.  Both of their parents sit nearby when they aren’t out hunting up food, circling above and screaming their distinctive cry.
            Having two nests is great, but I have a problem—I can't watch both at once because they are so far apart.  I have to walk the entire long side of the property to see one, and then back to see the other.  I have often seen the hawks as they first learn to fly.  I may miss that this time if I am watching the owl learn to fly on the same day. 
            Have you ever heard someone say, “I know God has more important things to deal with than my little problems?”  Is this supposed to be an excuse for a poor prayer life?  Is it supposed to be a proclamation of humility?  What it winds up being, if you think about it, is a lack of faith in the ability of God.  I can’t watch two nests, but God can.  Of the sparrows Jesus says, “Not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight,” (Luke 12:10).  Then he adds, “Fear not.  You are of more value than many sparrows.”  Not only does God consider my small problems important, He wants me to tell Him about them.
            The pagans of the world create gods they can understand based upon their own feelings.  The ancient Greek gods were the height of pettiness, malice, and cruelty.  Why?  Because the humans who created them imputed those far too human characteristics to their personalities.   We do exactly the same thing to God when we put Him in the box of our own human understanding.  “I know God has/does/thinks/feels…” is the height of presumptuousness.  It is not for us to be describing God in any manner in which He does not describe Himself.  “I just know God would never…” may be the most obvious way we limit God, but it is not even the most common.  Even in our zealous attempts to be reverent by inventing words like “omniscient,” we are guilty of limiting Him to our own ability to understand.  God is Eternal—you cannot quantify an Eternal Being because you cannot even comprehend Infinity.  He is “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” Eph 3:20.
            Simply let His Word describe Him and our (in)ability to comprehend Him.
            Behold God is great and we know him not, Job 36:26.
            "Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty? It is higher than heaven--what can you do? Deeper than Sheol--what can you know? Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea, Job 11:7-9.
            Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable [immeasurable], Isaiah 40:28.
            For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts, Isaiah 55:8-9.
            God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things we cannot comprehend, Job 37:5.
            Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?" Romans 11:33-34.
            It is not my place to figure out what God is doing or why, or even the possibilities of His power—He says it’s impossible to do so.  It’s not my business to decide whether my problems are big enough to bother Him with—He says to bother Him.  It’s not my business to decide what He might say or not say, do or not do, think or not think.  To do that is to limit Him to my understanding and to be a disrespectful child who thinks he deserves an explanation from a Sovereign Creator.  He has told me everything I need to know.  Reverence means I just accept that.
 
When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how neither day nor night do one's eyes see sleep, then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out. Even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out, Ecclesiastes 8:16-17.

Dene Ward

After installing several new feeders recently, along with some new bluebird houses and a couple of small birdbaths, both the numbers of birds visiting us, as well as the varieties, increased proportionately.  The very first day we spied a new one.  It didn’t take long to find him in the bird books I have—a brown-headed cowbird.
            The cowbird is a member of the blackbird family, and it is easy to think him some sort of blackbird.  That brown head is not obvious at a distance.  He stretches 7 to 8 inches from head to tail, glossy black with a chocolate brown head and a pointed gray bill.  Cowbirds do, however, have a negative trait—they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, then go off and expect that bird to raise their young.  Sometimes the host bird will destroy the unfamiliar eggs, but far more often, they will raise the cowbird nestlings, often neglecting their own.  Cowbird chicks are so much larger than the hosts’ chicks that they take most of the food and leave the others hungry.
            Do you know what they call birds that steal nests and abandon their young to others?  Parasite birds.  I had never thought of it that way, but it is a legitimate biological classification.  Cuckoos do it.  Wood ducks do it.  In fact, about 750 species of bird do it.
            Humans wouldn’t do that, would they?  We wouldn’t ignore the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, breaking up a home at will just because “I want him now,” or “I don’t love her any more.”  Why can’t I steal someone else’s nest if I want it?
            I have things I want to do, a career that makes me important.  I’m not made for taking care of children--I shouldn’t be saddled with these kids.  Why can’t the government raise them for me?  Why can’t I hire someone to do the dirty work?  Why can’t I lay my eggs in someone else’s nest and expect them to be responsible for my children?
            Why do I have to work to support my family?  Why should I have to control my physical hungers?  Why can’t I live as I want and not have to bear the responsibility of what follows?  Why can’t I deposit my burdens in someone else’s lap to pay for and tend to?
            I wonder if biologists have a class of human called “parasitic.”  “Entitlement” comes to mind; “selfishness” as well, not to mention “irresponsibility.”  God holds us accountable for our lives, for our health, for our families, for all the privileges we claim, especially in the most blessed society in the world.  He expects us to exercise self-control.  He expects us to be mature in our choices and responsible for them.  He expects us to be considerate of others in those choices too.
            Now that I have about 95% of you agreeing with me, let’s take it one step farther.  What about Christians who deposit their children in Bible classes and expect the church to teach them?  Sometimes parents will see that the child does his lesson, but sometimes the teachers are lucky if a workbook accompanies a child at all, much less one that has been well-studied and filled out.  The Bible tells us that parents are to teach their children, not the church.  It is certainly commendable to take them to Bible classes, but the example they see many, many more hours a week at home is the one that they learn from.
            The brown headed cowbird is one of the most disapproved of birds in the avian world.  Why is that we think the same sort of behavior, in any of its manifestations, should be acceptable, even applauded, in ours?
 
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without natural affection, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 2 Timothy 3:1-5

Just like in our old place, my elliptical machine sits on the back porch.  So, as I trudge off to nowhere for 45 minutes, I take in my surroundings in probably more detail than I ever would just walking through it.  Unfortunately, there is not much to take in.  The yard is postage stamp small. The back porch and patio take up most of the backyard.  Around the edges we have a wood pile for the portable fire pit and grill which sit on the patio, narrow strips of ground to store garbage cans and watering cans, and a raised bed for flowers eventually—once we find some that can survive both the almost perpetual shade and the morning sun reflecting off the white back fence for the few minutes a day that it does.  So far, no luck.
            The fence comes thanks to our neighbors on each side and the HOA which has one surrounding the outer edge of the neighborhood, against which we sit.  And that is where we see most of the activity.  Squirrels run across it, jumping into the oaks on the other side of the wall or scampering across accessible rooftops.  Cardinals, wrens, mockingbirds, blue jays, and a few bug eaters we have yet to identify perch along the top.  The neighbor's cat walks it like a tightrope.  Then there are the lizards.
            I had a bad encounter with a lizard as a child, so these are not my favorite creatures.    So far, only one has stealthily crept into the house and I hope it is the last.  I am not certain of all the varieties we have.  The ones we see the most are called anoles.  They were brought into southern Florida from the Caribbean and have spread into the southeastern United States.  The anole is a "redneck."  What looks like his throat is actually a dewlap which he can inflate into a red balloon larger than his own girth.  I know because, as I march along on the elliptical, one of them lies on the fence just opposite me and inflates his.  With my vision, it's the throat I see, not the rest of him, but it's not that difficult to figure out.
            Why does he do this, you ask?  Two reasons, I have read.  First, he is trying to scare away competitors for his territory, and/or his enemies.  Second, he is trying to attract a lady anole.  I have often wondered what would happen if I cared enough to get close and punctured his balloon with a needle.  Turns out that has happened to many an anole from things like thorns on bushes or splinters on pieces of wood.  So, will he be less able to defend his territorial rights?  Will he be less attractive to females?  Will he become sterile altogether?  No one really knows because no one has set up the experiment to find out.  It is too difficult to set up a closed system, evidently.
            But that big red balloon of a throat always makes me think.  It seems that anole comes looking for me every day because I never see that big balloon of a throat, relatively speaking, until he creeps just opposite me.  Then he moves up and down doing mini-push-ups, just as if he were pumping up a bicycle tire, and gradually that red balloon grows to a size I am certain he is proud of, and he will not leave.  He stays there as long as I do.  Yet he never manages to scare me off.  So why not go another way?  The very idea that something so small and virtually harmless could scare away something thousands of times its size and weight is ridiculous.
            And when it all boils down, isn't the Devil nothing more than a redneck lizard?  Do not get me wrong; I understand that he can be dangerous to anyone's soul.  But the truth is, he has already been defeated.  The moment Jesus wakened from the dead and left the tomb, his end was decided.  When the seventy returned, having performed miracles, including the casting out of demons, Jesus said, I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven, Luke 10:18.  Already, he meant to be saying, he is losing the battle for men's souls.  If we don't finish the course, it is not because we couldn't, but because we wouldn't.
            Not a big red dragon, but a tiny little lizard compared to the power of Jesus and his resurrection, pumping up his tiny balloon of a throat, trying to scare us into submission.  That's all Satan is compared to the power of Christ in us.  When I get off the elliptical machine and walk outside, that little lizard runs for all he's worth.  Make Satan do the same as you wield all that mighty armor against him.  Don't let him stake his territory on your soul.
 
Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil… withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one (Eph 6:11,16).
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you (Jas 4:7).
 
Dene Ward