Knowing and Learning (& More Travelers in Opposite Directions)
Here are some more pictures Charlene sent me on Monday. ~ Bonnie
Maui Swap Meet — our 5th local market experience. Highly recommend this way to meet the locals.
We took an Uber drive into the mountains on Maui.
Mountains on Maui
Watched the wind surfers on Maui
Hoping for some good shots of the wind surfers. We have quite a camera story to tell!!!
Sailing away from Maui
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Today we expect to continue “sailing, sailing . . . .” I thought quoting more of that line: “Sailing, sailing over the bounding main . . . .” However, when I looked up the meaning of bounding main, I found out that it means “a large, continuous body of salt water.” That works, I thought, but then I read the rest of the meaning: “a large, continuous body of salt water that surges and billows with waves.” That made me think that maybe I don’t want to be sailing on a bounding main at all, but only on a large, continuous body of salt water. I like to think of “Smooth Sailing” instead.
Our five-day trip is fast compared to humpback whales but that would be slow going for the Pacific golden plover (kolea in Hawaiian).
Male Pacific golden plover, courtesy U.S. National Park Service
Like humpback whales, young Pacific golden plovers also migrate from Alaska to Hawaii in the fall. Unlike the cruise ship which takes five days and the humpback whales that take six to eight weeks, they make the trip in only 48-50 hours. I was hoping that we might see a flock of them heading this way, but that’s not likely. They fly so high that they don’t have to worry about the bounding main.
Our family traveled to the lower 48 states together, but it’s not that way for Pacific golden plovers. The parents come first, leaving their month-old chicks to follow later. The parents come in August and the little ones come in September or early October.
The vintage post for today mentions the Eastern Kingbird, a bird that also migrates but lives far away from the Pacific Eastern plover. Ray and I expect to live with the same faith, commitments, and values on our cruise that we do at home. Eastern Kingbirds don’t have values like people do, but they live different lifestyles in their summer homes ranging throughout most of the U.S. and Canada (except the West Coast and the Southwest) than they do when they winter in South America. Here in the summer, they perch on treetops and fence wires and catch insects in mid-air. In winter in South America, they gather into flocks in tropical forests and eat berries.
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Knowing and Learning
A Vintage Post from June 23, 2014
Several months ago I mentioned our 35-year-old board book, God Made All the Colours. God really did make so many, many of them. Just think of the last time you tried to find something to go with a fuschia skirt or a red shirt or a pair of navy pants. Sometimes it seems that no two colors are alike.
We also know that God made all the plants. I went for a walk near our house one spring and found forty different kinds of wildflowers! Notice the differences in just these three I saw that day.
Buttercups
Eastern Red Columbine
Eastern Daisy Fleabone
God made lots of different kinds of birds, too. When I wrote about my fine, feathered window friends on Friday, I wondered what kind of birds they were. Very soon after the blog went out, I heard from two good friends who identified our nesters as Eastern Kingbirds. I was excited to learn from my avid bird-watching friend that they spend summers in Tennessee and winters in South American forests! My former nature camp-directing-friend told me that it is hard to catch them nesting. Isn’t that just the coolest thing? Tennessee to South America–world travelers right outside my window!
Isn’t it wonderful to have friends who know things you don’t know and who care enough to share their knowledge with you! I had looked these birds up in a list of 100 common Tennessee birds while I was writing the blog for Friday, but I didn’t find them. I looked back at the list last night, and sure enough, the Eastern Kingbird made the list of 100. My problem was that my bird’s belly was facing me and the bird on the list of 100 was facing the other way. My bird knowledge is so limited that I was stumped.
I think it’s important to teach our children how to handle things they don’t know. Have you ever spent much time with a know-it-all? That’s no fun! Have you spent time with people who don’t feel like they know anything? That’s no fun either!
Children (and we adults) need to feel confident about what we know. We need to know (and feel down deep) that we can learn. And we need to respect the knowledge of others.
God made all kinds of people, too. Some know about birds. Some know about barnacles. Some know about brain surgery. Aren’t we glad that other people know things we don’t know? Aren’t we glad we don’t have to know it all?
May God give us the knowledge we need, the hunger to learn, and the humility to be taught.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 1:7