As Human Beings, We Live Our Lives in a Way That, Over Time, Becomes Familiar

As human beings, we live our lives in a way that, over time, becomes familiar. This may show itself in the words and phrases we use, the way we conduct ourselves, the food we eat, and  other ways too numerous to count.

For instance, ever since we were children I bet you called a four-legged, female bovine a cow.  In actuality, said bovine is not a cow until it has  birthed its first calf. After an initial pregnancy, it’s a first-year heifer. Once its calf is old enough to birth offspring, making the first year heifer a grandma then, the first-year heifer becomes a cow. Now, isn’t that just a syllable from being poetic?

I did a post that included the 17-year locust a week or so ago. What I failed to mention, was what most people call a locust is actually a cicada. A locust is nothing more than a grasshopper that swarms, takes flight, and eats all plant life in its path.

How about these for various collections of animals according to dictionary.com:

1. A flamboyance of flamingos

2. A lounge of lizards

3. A bloat of hippopotamuses

4. A conspiracy of lemurs

5. A convocation of eagles

6. A smack of jellyfish

7. An obstinacy of buffalo

8. An unkindness of ravens

9. A business of ferrets

10. A mob of kangaroos

11. A zeal of zebras

12. A shrewdness of apes

13. A leap of leopards

And just in case you are wondering, a mountain lion, cougar, puma, panther, catamount, mountain screamer, Mexican lion, painter, red lion and American lion; along with 30 or so additional names are all the same wildcat.

Go figure, once you delve into things you find out, other things about the things you didn’t expect to find about the original things and for that matter the secondary things  are a bonus because you learned an overabundance of things about things.

Having just celebrated Easter, remember the gift of our savior, Jesus, and what he endured to save us for all eternity. Have one great week . . . as a matter-of-fact, have the best week you’ve ever had until next week!

Have You Given Any Thought to How Much of Our Lives Revolve in Cyclical Patterns?

Have you given any thought to how much of our lives revolve in cyclical patterns? For instance, the very time that structures each moment, boils down into seconds, then to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days, days into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, etc.

Our year is divided into four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. The years usher in hot summers and cold winters that within themselves change as time progresses, bringing warmer winters, cooler summers, and then back again.

Certain species even cycle their life spans in this manner, like the seventeen-year locust. They dine during the summer. The adults lay their eggs in small branches on the host tree. The limbs die and fall to the ground. The eggs hatch, the larvae bury beneath the ground, spending the next seventeen years eating succulent tree roots until time to emerge, starting the seventeen years process anew.

El Niño and La Nina make an appearance every seven to eight years, one ushering in cold water in the Pacific, and the other ushering in warm water into the Pacific. This little boy and girl can change weather patterns in the Atlantic, especially during hurricane season, which has a cyclical pattern in and of itself. Hurricanes wax and wane in intensity every couple of decades, kinda like our generations.

Even in our solar system, we find evidence of cycles in returning comets, asteroids, and meteors.

We have only been keeping accurate records for a short number of years. When  compared to the age of our Earth, it is impossible to determine whether the changes we experience are part of a larger cyclical happening or not. This is because the last cycle may be so far removed we have no record of the happening.

I hope this post gives you something to think about. May God richly bless you and remember:

You don’t have to agree on anything to be kind to one another . . . unknown.