What Should I Do With These Stones?

When I was in Israel I saw a lot of houses made with stone. Timber was scarce in Israel but stones were plentiful. I marveled at the stone structures of antiquity. It required skilled engineering and craftsmanship and an enormous amount of labor to build the theaters and arches and walls and roadways that are still with us today. They managed to turn rocks into an asset and did so without benefit of modern technology. I was amazed at the walls and buildings of Old Jerusalem. How did they get two and a half-ton rocks in place in order to build a high and mighty wall? I saw a rock in the rabbinical tunnel that was part of the retaining wall of the old temple area. It would have been at street level in the day of Jesus. That means I was looking at the same rock Jesus would have seen. It is calculated that it weighs 580 tons. How did they get it there in one piece? I do not know. But the ancients were really good at turning the common materials available into a valuable asset. But when you cut and craft stone there is going to be some waste. That means that somewhere there were piles of sharp, rough, jagged rocks lying around. They were not big enough to be useful but they were big enough to be dangerous. Maybe that is why one of the preferred methods of mob violence was stoning. We read that the Jews picked up rocks to stone Jesus. It occurs to me that rocks when coupled with intelligence, desire, planning, skill, and hard work can be turned into walls and roads and buildings. But when anger and misunderstanding prevails rocks can be turned into weapons of destruction. We can pick up rocks to build or we can pick up rocks to kill. Makes me wonder what I am doing with the rocks that are strewn along the paths I walk.

Feeding Ducks (and Geese)

My autistic son Brock and I fed bread to the ducks at the park today. It is more fun feeding the ducks now that the geese are gone. For several months there was a small flock of Canadians who invaded the lake and then hatched and raised a batch of goslings. Geese are bullies. You could throw a piece of bread towards a duck and a goose would swim over and steal it. Even the sight of the goose with that long neck stretched out swimming toward the bread would cause a duck to turn and swim in a different direction. The geese would walk the bank and stick out their necks and hiss at everything in sight. They acted like they owned the place. But the ducks were there first. And the city of Fairfield holds title to the real estate. A few weeks ago we were throwing pieces of bread on the lake and trying to make sure that the ducks got their fair share. I noticed that three ducks had waddled up behind us on the shore. We were standing between them and the geese. I flipped a piece of bread over my shoulder and they quickly ate it unhindered by the geese. I continued giving pieces of bread to Brock and he would break the bread in pieces and feed the ducks. But he had noticed what I had done. Now he would break the bread and about every third piece throw over his shoulder to the ducks behind him. Survival of the fittest is the way of our world. But somehow we need to learn that just because one is bigger, meaner, more clever, has a longer neck, can hiss louder, and move quicker, does not mean they are entitled to everything. Sometimes the solution is as simple as being a barrier and creating a distribution plan.