Flyover Pilgrim

Bee of the Week

2014-12-31T00:00:00.000-06:00

Christ is Born!

2014-12-25T22:50:00.002-06:00

Glorify Him!

Bee of the Week

2014-12-24T00:30:00.000-06:00

The One whose birth we celebrate tomorrow, created bumblebees, and you and me, and all of creation, from the tiniest sub-atomic particles to the greatest galaxies.

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!

from The Guardian

Bee of the Week

2014-12-17T00:30:00.000-06:00

Yellow-faced Bumble Bee, Bombus vosnesenskii- Female

Las Pilitas Nursery

Bee of the Week

2014-12-10T00:30:00.000-06:00


Collecting Pollen

Northumberland State Park

Splashdown!

2014-12-05T15:49:00.001-06:00

Incredible footage.

I had forgotten the launch was postponed until today, I am sorry I missed it "live."

This makes my heart move right into my throat.

I wonder who the brave souls will be, who will go into the first Orion manned flight.

See the takeoff, from Tumblr.

Bee of the Week

2014-12-03T00:00:00.000-06:00

Go order his great photos here.

Thanksgiving

2014-11-27T19:52:00.003-06:00

A blessed Thanksgiving to all.

Some post-prandial inspiration, via The Blaze.

Bee of the Week

2014-11-26T00:00:00.000-06:00

from Kaching!

History Test

2014-11-17T09:52:00.003-06:00

Only remember: There are battles taking place in the heavenlies that are far more significant than those that take place here on Earth.

1968, Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by:
1. Superman
2. Jay Leno
3. Harry Potter
4. A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by:
1. Olga Corbett
2. Sitting Bull
3. Arnold Schwarzenegger
4. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by:
1. Lost Norwegians
2. Elvis
3. A tour bus full of 80-year-old women
4. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40
During the 1980s a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
1. John Dillinger
2. The King of Sweden
3. The Boy Scouts
4. Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

Take the rest of the test at Liberty's Torch.

Right to Death?

2014-11-15T15:24:00.002-06:00

From Pravmir.com :

On Saturday November 1, 2014, Brittany Maynard committed suicide. She had been diagnosed last spring with a rare form of brain cancer and given six months to live. She decided she did not want to live that time suffering from her disease with its increasingly severe seizures, and so she moved to Oregon with her husband and took the overdose of barbiturates prescribed by her doctor for the purpose of suicide. She was twenty-nine years old.

As might be expected her very public death (she shared on Facebook her decision to kill herself that day with the words, “Today is the day I chose to pass away in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer which has taken so much from me… but would have taken so much more”) has ignited afresh what has been called by some the “right-to-die” debate in the United States. That debate will continue to rage, with some hailing Oregon’s “Death with Dignity Act” as a milestone of compassion, while others denounce such measures as the creeping secularization of the nation. Certainly the disabled and the elderly have much to lose if what Hamlet called God’s “canon against self-slaughter” is revoked by the legislature, and some of them have already weighed in on the debate. Here I would like to look at the issue from the strictly theological perspective. The question is not just “will legalizing euthanasia lead to bad things?” but the more fundamental issue of human sovereignty versus the divine. Bluntly put, do we have the right to arrogate to ourselves matters of life and death, deciding who may live and who may die? Are we the Lords of life and death, or does such lordship belong solely to God?

Additionally, it is a sin to take a life (your own or someone else's) because you have taken away the person's time to repent. An awful thought.

Chick of the Week

2014-11-14T01:34:00.000-06:00

via animalhdwalls

Synaxis of the Holy Heavenly Bodiless Powers

2014-11-08T01:00:00.000-06:00

Commemorated November 8.

From the OCA website:

The Synaxis of the Chief of the Heavenly Hosts, Archangel Michael and the Other Heavenly Bodiless Powers: Archangels Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Selaphiel, Jehudiel, Barachiel, and Jeremiel was established at the beginning of the fourth century at the Council of Laodicea, which met several years before the First Ecumenical Council. The 35th Canon of the Council of Laodicea condemned and denounced as heretical the worship of angels as gods and rulers of the world, but affirmed their proper veneration.

A Feastday was established in November, the ninth month after March (with which the year began in ancient times) since there are Nine Ranks of Angels. The eighth day of the month was chosen for the Synaxis of all the Bodiless Powers of Heaven since the Day of the Dread Last Judgment is called the Eighth Day by the holy Fathers. After the end of this age (characterized by its seven days of Creation) will come the Eighth Day, and then “the Son of Man shall come in His Glory and all the holy Angels with Him” (Mt. 25:31).

The Angelic Ranks are divided into three Hierarchies: highest, middle, and lowest.
The Highest Hierarchy includes: the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones.

The six-winged SERAPHIM (Flaming, Fiery) (Is 6:12) stand closest of all to the Most Holy Trinity. They blaze with love for God and kindle such love in others.

The many-eyed CHERUBIM (outpouring of wisdom, enlightenment) (Gen 3:24) stand before the Lord after the Seraphim. They are radiant with the light of knowledge of God, and knowledge of the mysteries of God. Through them wisdom is poured forth, and people’s minds are enlightened so they may know God and behold His glory.

The THRONES (Col 1:16) stand after the Cherubim, mysteriously and incomprehensibly bearing God through the grace given them for their service. They are ministers of God’s justice, giving to tribunals, kings, etc. the capacity for righteous judgment.

You can read the rest here.

Paging Mr Newton

2014-11-08T00:30:00.000-06:00

Fascinating.

Brilliant

2014-11-07T22:39:00.000-06:00

Mr Pilgrim and I just got home from seeing Interstellar, in IMAX.

It was brilliant.

Matthew McConaughey was brilliant.
Anne Hathaway was Anne Hathaway.
Matt Damon was frightening in his role.

If you like good science fiction, or if you like a good story (because it's both), go see it.

Chick of the Week

2014-11-07T01:33:00.000-06:00

via http://www.bucabuc.com/chickens.html

For Mr Pilgrim

2014-11-06T09:44:00.000-06:00

Ten things

2014-11-05T09:29:00.003-06:00

Ten facts Democrats do not want to talk about:

1. Sluggish economic growth. Yes, we’ve had a couple of strong quarters, but annualized growth throughout the Obama presidency has been less than 2 percent. That is horrendous.

2. Median income is down $3,000 per household since Obama took office. Astonishing.

3. The labor participation rate is down from 67 percent to 62 percent, which makes the published unemployment rate look much better than it really is. The U6 rate, which includes those who have given up looking for work, remains over 10 percent.

4. More part-time jobs have been created than full-time jobs in last six years.

5. The home ownership rate is down from 67 percent to 64 percent.

6. Taxes went up when the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire. Liberals will say that’s fine because they only went up on the rich. I say the government did what it too often does and chose to target producers and opportunity creators.

7. ObamaCare is a failure! More people are losing their insurance than are becoming newly insured, and 51 percent of those enrolled in the exchanges say they will not re-up given the opportunity the next time around. Then there are the 29ers (people being limited to 29 hours a week because of ObamaCare mandates) and the 49ers (not the San Francisco ones . . . the businesses intentionally staying under 50 employees to avoid the coverage mandate). There are also thousands of doctors refusing patients with ObamaCare coverage because they can’t cover their costs on the reimbursements, while thousands more doctors are retiring early.

8. The national debt has exceeded $17 trillion for the first time in U.S. history. Remember when Obama declared as a senator that running up debt was unpatriotic? Um. Yeah.

9. From the Middle East to Eastern Europe to Russia to Britain to the Falkland Islands to Latin America to Mexico to the Far East, our foreign policy is a muddled mess. Shockingly to Obama the rest of the world did not conform to his global ideals just because he gave speeches saying they should.

10. Twice as many U.S. military deaths have happened in the Middle East under Obama’s watch in half the time as under President Bush’s. This happened despite aggressive campaigning by Obama against the war in Iraq, promoting him as the bringer of peace to the region, a foreign policy prodigy and the savior of U.S. service men and women.

from Polination

Bee of the Week

2014-11-05T00:30:00.000-06:00

Bop the bee

Chick of the Week

2014-10-31T01:32:00.000-05:00

Shame

2014-10-29T12:13:00.003-05:00

A thoughtful and insightful article from Pravmir, by Archpriest Stephen Freeman.

Several years back I stumbled on a book about the sin of envy. I was struck by what I read and realized that I had never heard a sermon on the topic (nor preached one). Though a number of the Fathers cite envy as the first and greatest sin, it never seemed to come up as a spiritual topic. I also realized that it was almost never mentioned in confession. A strange sin – perhaps the greatest and yet held in secret.

Over the course of the last year, a number of things have introduced me to the topic of shame. I have explored its role in my own life and become far more aware of its almost ubiquitous presence in our culture. It is recorded as the first human response to sin – they hid themselves. However, I again noted that I had rarely heard the subject discussed and did not find it to be a topic that arose in confession. A strange emotion – perhaps the oldest human emotion – universal – and almost never discussed.

As they say, read the whole thing.
I wonder how many sins are rooted in shame? "The sins of the father is visited upon the sons..."

Chick of the Week

2014-10-24T03:00:00.000-05:00

via chelmsford agway farmersmarket

Play dead

2014-10-24T02:30:00.000-05:00

“I am too lazy to jump into the back of the car”

Tucker is 1 year old and uses the technique of playing dead whenever he doesn’t want to do something. Even though he can jump up into the low Prius, he refuses to do it voluntarily and prefers to place his front paws up and then have his rear paws lifted up. When I don’t cooperate he plays dead and poor poodle Scarlett has to wait impatiently while I try to move him from his passive protest position.”

from Dog Shaming.

Break the boundaries

2014-10-23T21:15:00.002-05:00

embroidery on magnolia leaf and cicada exoskeleton

Amazing embroidery I found on Pinterest.

Wolves in Yellowstone

2014-10-22T11:51:00.001-05:00

Basic principles of "permaculture" elegantly , and remarkably, exhibited when the wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone.