tragedies

Reading all the sad news of the people who died as a result of the tsunami is almost unbearable. It kind of puts things into shocking perspective. In this recent Orion online article, the climate changes that are occurring due to global warming are described as likely to be much more of a sudden crisis than a gradual thing. And we seem incapable of dealing with it. So, we are facing many more horrific events like this one. Sadly, nature was never the enemy, but we persisted in poking at it irreverently as the article says, as if poking at a large, sleeping, ferocious beast with a little twig.

That reminds me of something lovely I read a while back about reverence, on Tom Spencer's site, the Soul of the Garden. This is what Tom wrote:

In his beautiful book, Reverence,
Austin author, Paul Woodruff, attempts to reawaken us to the ancient gifts of
ceremony and ritual, he argues that they can enrich our lives if they are
imbued with reverence. He quotes the Confucian Analects, "Without Li
(reverence) courtesy is tiresome; without Li, prudence is timid; without
Li, bravery is quarrelsome; without Li, frankness is hurtful." I might add,
without Li, gardening is painful.

A bright red cardinal visited my bird feeders this morning! Maybe he's been there before, but it was the first time I've seen him. It's a sign.
One of my best friends gave me a couple of books last night -- a Christmas present. One of the books is called "The Red Hat Club". Now, isn't that appropriate?