Independence Day

As I think maybe I've said a few times before, I'm trying to make a once-a-week appearance here. At least. That's not because I'm trying to sustain a loyal readership (dream on . . . ) or even because I have a whole lot to say, but because I want to sustain the habit of saying whatever little I do have to say, at least once a week.

Today: well, I'm sitting at a cafe and its the 4th of July. Rain in the offing, so no fireworks tonight, not that I would have gone. There's a house sparrow bopping around in the beach roses just outside the window. Sparrows are, I think, very underrated birds. They're very interesting, very beautiful. Perhaps it is their very commonness that keeps us from really paying attention.

These common birds, backyard birds, even the commonest of them, give us a glimpse of God's Grandeur.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.   It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;   It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oilCrushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;   And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;   And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soilIs bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;   There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;And though the last lights off the black West went   Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--Because the Holy Ghost over the bent   World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

That's all for this morning. I'm going to do some chores this morning, get myself some Irish whiskey and drink a toast to ol' Tom Jefferson, and pray for more of God's grandeur.