A week ago today in was still in Tucson for the Tucson Birding Festival and, since it was the last day of the festival and we were both tired out, my colleague and I made no plans to go out before the show hours. Still I walked along the river behind the hotel and, when the chance occurred, borrowed the car for a short drive to a city park that one of the locals had recommend. There was nothing much happening at the park…it was nice as parks go, but the promised birds were simply not there. There were of course Mallards, tamed by the daily proximity to the park patrons, and as I walked by one (you practically had to shoo them out of the path) I looked down into this amazing window of blue on the wing. Zoom. Snap.

Sony HX400V at about 900mm equivalent field of view. ISO 200 @ 1/250th @ f5.6. Processed in Snapseed on my tablet.

And for the Sunday Thought. For me the patterns of color in bird plumage, and the structure of the feathers themselves, will always be testimony to the actions of a loving creator. I simply can not believe that any sequence of random mutations could have resulted in anything as intricate and beautiful as the feathers on a Mallard duck. I can not conceive of any evolutionary advantage to the contrasting patch of blue fire that flashes when the wings are held just so…that glimpse of the pure blue beyond. Personally I find it that I am forced to consider the possibility of an intelligence behind the design…a loving intent expressing itself in feather and color…in the living being of the duck under foot. I take our ability to see and appreciate such pattern and such intent as central to who we are and to the nature of the universe we live in. It was exactly at the moment when I came to that conclusion I my life, that the Creator broke in in Jesus Christ and demanded that I consider his claims to be that intelligence, that person…the one who spoke the love in the blue beyond the structure of the universe. Honestly I resisted the idea, but when he offered me, in the simple act of opening myself to belief, whatever proof I might want, I surrendered, and he has been proving the truth of a life of faith ever since…one day at a time…speaking in every second in every circumstance…in every encounter…in the blue beyond the beautiful feathers of an apparently random semi-tame duck on a pond in Tucson AZ on a Sunday morning in August. And I have every reason to believe he will prove himself again today. And I an confident he will do the same for you if you can open yourself to believe. His love is always there, speaking in the blue beyond. Happy Sunday!