Transfish

I enjoy documentary programmes about wildlife and creation.  At the moment we have the new series with David Attenborough called Blue Planet 2.  We have seen 2 episodes so far and am looking forward the the third and last episode on Sunday.  In the first episode, there was amazing footage of an Asian Sheepshead Wrasse.  This particular filming was done off the coast of Northern Japan.  It first showed a male and female together.  The female is the smaller fish in the photo.  The male also has a large protrusion on the forehead.  The female was trying to get the male interested in her but when nothing happened in spite of all her efforts, she swam off and secluded herself in a hole in the coral reef.




Things started to happen with her - enzymes and hormones were released inside her body as she was changing both inside and in appearance.  The protrusion on her head became larger and when she eventually emerged from her isolation she had changed from a female fish into a male fish.  Creation has its own transgender creature!  

The account can be read on http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/blue-planet-2-transexual-fish-david-attenborough-a8026911.html
The female then went back and challenged the male and eventually took over his territory as a fully-grown alpha male.
Another strange occurrence in nature is the fact that it is the male seahorse that carries and gives birth to the young.  

For those who believe that God is the Creator of all things, then we must accept that the particular gender of creation does not seem to be important to him.  In fact in the Bible we read many, many times about eunuchs.  In Isaiah 56:4-5 God says that he accepts their worship and has a place for them within the temple.  When referring to eunuchs in Matthew 19:12, Jesus says that some are born that way and some are made that way.  'Born that way' would be what we now call Gays and 'made that way' surely refers to transgender people.  Paul teaches us that before God there is neither male nor female but we are all one before him.

So, I can't help wondering why some religious people get so obsessed with gender identity when according to creation, many parts of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus it would seem that to God it is not that important.  How we live and express our love to God is more important it would seem.  Maybe it's time to follow the teachings of Jesus and be a bit more inclusive instead of judgmental. 

Little Weed

I've just been out in the garden this morning doing a bit of tidying up.  I know that God created all things so I guess the weeds and wild things growing in my garden are God's plants.  But really, does he have to contribute so much!?

It seems that the wild grass is everywhere.  It always pops up where I have dug over to put my plants.  The thing is that you can pull it up from the top thinking that you've dealt with it but it just seems to grow back the very next day.  Of course when you really dig down, you discover that the roots are quite deep and travel along underground to pop up again somewhere else.  It took me quite some time to get to the grass roots and get them out.  I guess that's life.  There are some things that you have to go quite deep in order to deal with the real problem or it just keeps emerging at a later date and we have the same problem all over again.

One little plant caught my eye though.  So I got my camera out and took a picture to share it.  It is so small I barely noticed it.  It was growing between two big stone slabs in our patio area.  It struck me that there was this little flower, all on its own, in full bloom doing what it was created to do - blossom even against the odds.  It wasn't in some carefully maintained soil, fed and watered by the gardener.  It just found a small space and did it's thing, in all its glory.  Even if no-one had noticed it, it would still have blossomed and do what it was created to do.

Ah!  How often we do things well so that we are liked or appreciated.  If no-one is looking then maybe we think, 'what's the point?'.  That was one little weed that I didn't pull up and discard into the bin of garden waste.  I left it to remind me that I should do what I'm here to do, regardless of whether I'm noticed or appreciated.  As the sports logo says, 'Just do it!'.  It's what we used to call Integrity.  

Take Your Time

Walking into town this morning, I passed a young woman with a small child.  The woman was holding an empty pushchair, looking behind where the child was.  The small toddler was walking very slowly.  I smiled to myself thinking 'you can't be in a hurry when a small child wants to walk.'  The mother knows where she's going and just wants to get there but for the child, it's a whole new adventure.  She wants to look closely at everything and just take time to enjoy the freedom of walking and taking it all in.  No doubt some things were new to her and so had to be investigated.

Those of us who are parents or grandparents remember well the times when our children discovered things for the first time.  Oh the excitement; the look on their faces; sheer wonder at discovering something new.

It does seem a shame that much of that wonder of seeing life goes as we grow older.  We can so easily get to the point of 'we've seen it all before' and dismiss the awesomeness of small things happening all around us.  We are so often in a hurry just to get from A to B as quickly as possible.  Busy, busy, busy; deadlines to meet; so much to pack into our 24 hours.  And before we know it, the months and years have flown by.  

I must say that as a retired person, I do have the privilege of not having deadlines to meet or places I must be.  Still, it is a good reminder to occasionally just stop and notice the small details of everyday life.  Take time, take a deep breath and enjoy just being alive.  Don't let life slip by without taking time to enjoy it.   

Checking the Time

Earlier this week we had a visit from our water supplier.  They are going around all the homes to do checks and make sure that all our facilities are up-to-date and see if they can save us any money.  Well, I'm all for saving money where I can so I agreed to their visit.  I was told it would take about 45 minutes.  The representative came and began checking all the taps, cisterns, pipework and machines that use water, making sure that we use them in such a way that we aren't wasting water unnecessarily.  

The timer that stuck half way

After only 15 minutes, he said that he couldn't find anything that we could or should change and that the water system in our house has passed with flying colours and he was giving us a 'clean bill of health' so to speak.  Before going on to the next house, he left us with a small timer.  He said that it should only take us 4 minutes to have a shower and that this timer would help us to see if we were complying with this suggestion.  It should take four minutes for the contents to go from the top to the bottom of the timer.  He jokingly said that we could also use it to time how long it takes to boil an egg.

The next morning, while using the shower, I thought I would try the timer just out of curiosity, although I didn't think I ever stayed in the shower for too long anyway.  Well I had my shower and checked the timer.  The contents were only half way through which puzzled me a bit so I thought I would check it again.  So I turned the timer to begin the count again.  Sure enough, the same thing happened.  Half way through, the contents stuck and the whole process came to a halt.  I left it for a while but it didn't move any further.  Just as well I didn't use it as an egg timer, I thought!

It reminded me of the advert for paint that says - 'It does what it says on the tin' meaning that you can trust it to do what it's supposed to, except this was just the opposite.  When we tell people that God is love and that we follow the teachings of Jesus and then they look at our lives, I wonder it they think we are acting and saying things that really show what God is like or are we a bit of a disappointment.  Does my life do 'what it says on the tin' or are my words empty, a bit of a pointless gesture that doesn't really mean anything? It's not so much what we say but how we actually live and put our words into practice in the ordinary, daily walk of life that counts. As another saying goes, 'actions speak louder than words.'

Variety and Nonconformity

Hello, everyone, as you can see I'm back after quite a long break.  I won't be posting regularly every week as before but will do so occasionally.

In the news lately, we have been advised that taking a brisk walk every day even for only 10 minutes, will keep us healthy.  So this morning I decided to go for a short walk around the estate where I live.  I don't know how often I'll do this, but at least it will be a start!  After I'd finished doing some chores in the house and had put a load of washing in the washer, I went on my way.

I passed a garden with beautiful flowers, all colours, shapes and sizes making a wonderful display.  Further along a passed a hedge trimmed very neatly and next to it a neighbouring hedge that was obviously well tended but one twig stuck out.  It made me smile.  Nonconformist!  In just two gardens it seemed that I was being reminded of some great truths.  The beautiful display was a combination of many different plants, different formations of flowers, different sizes and colours but together making the garden a very pleasant place.  The hedge reminded me that even in creation, there are those things that don't always conform to what the majority are doing and that's ok.  Variety is accepted and tolerated.



It reminded me of the time I with my two sons were visiting family in Argentina (in 1999) and we went to visit one niece/cousin who met us at the airport with her husband and two daughters (the third daughter was born a few years later).  We went to a small cafe for something to eat and the youngest daughter Cata (Catalina) just couldn't sit still.  Her father kept saying, 'Cata, sit down.', 'Cata, don't do that.'  Eventually he asked, 'Cata, what do you want?'  Immediately, without even thinking about it, she replied in her childhood innocence, 'I want to misbehave.' Well, we didn't know whether to laugh or look away and ignore the comment.  Her father then explained that she couldn't misbehave here as other people wouldn't like it.  Of course, I'm not advocating we misbehave but how often children in all innocence question why they must conform to what other people expect of them.  She is now a lovely young lady who probably doesn't even remember that occasion.

Thank God, that He doesn't create clones!  Creation shows us that variety and difference go to make life beautiful and that we are all individuals who contribute to the success of the whole.  Even those who don't conform to what the majority want have a place and make life interesting, often bringing a different approach and way of seeing things.   All parents will vouch for the fact that all their children are different, each special in their own way.  It's when others don't always do things the way we like or insist on being just that bit different that we find it hard to accept.  Patience!  I'm working on it.