People hunted with birds in Cyrus the Great’s time and place (6th cent BC, Mesopotamia).* Just another of many things I’ve learned recently while working on my next book. Trying to figure out what bird to give him, I spent the better part of Friday night learning what kinds might have been found in his area. …
Stephen Dunn, poet extraordinaire. Among my favorites, a riff on the Leviticus scapegoat. It’s a prose poem in which God sympathizes with the goat and calls this method of atonement yet another human sin. I’d love to write it out for you here but haven’t asked permission. Do check it out yourself (I bought What Goes On, …
Now that I’m again safely ensconsed in my office and seated at my desk, the golden retriever’s work of exuberant greeting and following from room to room is done. So he’s sleeping soundly on the floor behind me. The pound hound, a guy who prefers the outdoors even though (short-haired and prone to shivering) he has to wear …
What do you make of that post-Flood biblical statement about animals living in dread of humans (Gen 9:2)? I love Charles Shields’ take on it — “to mean that we must overcome animals’ dread of us.” It reminds me of the Oct 2010 National Geographic article on Jane Goodall by David Quammen. Now there’s a beautiful life spent not only disarming animals but also dignifying …
How much do you know about animals in the Bible? Take Beliefnet’s quiz to find out! I had a lot of fun working up this little test. And gosh, there are so many more biblical animals that we could talk about… Meanwhile, I rescued a big painted turtle yesterday from the humiliation of canine objectification as …
Biologists in FL are working to preserve native species threatened by the catastrophic Gulf oil spill, and they’ve dubbed it “Operation Noah’s Ark.” Echoing that story in the biblical book of Genesis, Jack and Anne Rudlow are collecting what critters they can house in their Gulf Specimen Marine Lab to preserve and then release when the …
Living as a nomad, it was bound to happen: I left my computer behind. Bouncing between cities (two) and offices (four) as I’ve done the past semester, I rely on THE LIST — things to do before leaving the house (empty the kitchen compost, e.g.) and things to bring (er, that’d be the computer, e.g.). The list works great… if …
