St Francis of Assisi Day

St. Francis preaching to the birds

In the Roman Catholic Church, each saint has a day assigned to honor them.  Today is St. Francis of Assisi Day.  I thought of him this morning as I fed my cats, as we drove to work and saw three deer feeding beside the road, watched a herd of cattle and then of llamas in the fields along the highway, passed a murder of crows dropping walnuts to the road to break them open, saw a pair of mockingbirds trying to run another crow off that had gotten too close to their nest, listen to the insects and birds sing outside my open office door, listened to the squeals and laughter as children arrived for nursery school...  Francis saw the presence of God in the faces of all of his little brothers and sisters, heard the voice of God in their songs, and preached back to them the good news of God's love.  He calls us to find the very presence of God in the wonders of creation surrounding us.

In yesterday's daily e-mail meditation, Richard Rohr had this to say about Francis

In most paintings of people waiting for the Holy Spirit they are looking upward, with their hands outstretched or raised up, the assumption being that the Holy Spirit will descend from “up” above. In the Great Basilica in Assisi where St. Francis is buried, there’s a bronze statue of him honoring the Holy Spirit. His posture and perspective are completely different from what we have come to expect. He’s looking down into the earth with expectation and desire! This is the change of perspective that became our alternative orthodoxy—although it should have been mainline orthodoxy! He was merely following the movement of the Incarnation, since Christians believe that the Eternal Word became “flesh” (John 1:14), and it is in the material world that God and the holy are to be found.

 Today, I will honor Francis by looking down to find the presence of God.

the beauty of a place

Once upon a time there was a Texan visiting the northeast.  He had heard about the beauty of the place and was excited to see it.  Standing on the side of a Vermont mountain, looking across a valley he turned to his host, shrugged and remarked, "I guess the scenery is nice... but it is so hard to see with all of those trees in the way."

I have been very few places that did not have real beauty.  I love the stark beauty of the desert with the shapes of the rocks and colors of the hills.  I love the impressionist like landscapes in the northeast.  I love the rolling hills, dotted with grazing cattle and sheep that we saw in Scotland.  I love the fecundity of Hawaii where the flowers bloom everywhere and the mountains fall into the sea.  I love El Junque, just east of San Juan Puerto Rico where everything literally drips with life, the green is overwhelming, and the oxygen so thick it is almost oppressive.  Oklahoma didn't do anything for me... and I've been a few places in the central valley of California where it was also difficult for me to see anything truly beautiful but I expect that if I spent even a few more hours in either place, I would find something.

All that said, where I live is astoundingly beautiful.  While I lived in the northeast, the picture I often had of California was of the sprawl of Orange County or the urban blight or extreme wealth of parts of LA (thanks television!).   Those are certainly part of the picture here but the one piece that really surprised me, and still does at times, is how wild California is.  About once a year we hear of a sighting of a mountain lion, often in a place where significant populations of people live.  A few months ago, I was driving home along the Gaviota Coast and looked over to my right only see a golden eagle take off from a telephone pole.  This past Friday, I was driving along the same coast in the other direction and looked out to the ocean only to see a whale spout about 200 yards off shore.  It was the second time I'd seen a whale from my car while driving in that area.  Then there are the more common wildlife - coyotes, hawks, hummingbirds, dolphins, sea birds, sea lions, elephant seals, varieties of lizards and snakes, and tarantula...  And while we live in an area that is technically semi-arid, there are always flowers blooming of one sort or other.  The hills are usually golden brown dotted with live oak trees, but after a rain, they turn green and then in spring they turn yellow, covered with mustard flowers.  The sides of the mountains along with rock faces are often covered with the dirty green of chaparral, live oak, and evergreens.  The mountains rise and fall into the ocean.  In winter when the air is very clear, you can look south across the ocean (the coast runs east-west in the SB area) and it seems that you can reach out and touch the Channel Islands, the closest of which is 22 miles out. 

Gaviota Pass

Driving from Santa Barbara to Buellton, where we live, you go along the coast for about 20 miles and then turn north, paralleling the coast which also turns north a bit further west, and drive through the Gaviota Pass through the Santa Ynez Mountains... the mountains are glorious with the southern end of the pass being particularly dramatic.  Once you get to the Santa Ynez Valley, you're in wine country with some of the best Rhone style and Pinot Noirs in the world surrounded by vineyards, cattle farms, and other produce. 

So, I highly recommend a visit some time and I expect I may hear you sitting at a breakfast spot either in Santa Barbara looking out at the dolphins playing in the ocean or in the valley, enjoying Danish pancakes and in either place, talking across the table, wondering whether you might somehow be able to move here.

mother nature

The last few days, I've been struck by the wonders of this place where I live. It is breathtakingly beautiful and the boundaries between civilization and the wilderness are quite narrow and close by. It is very common to see a pod of dolphins and not unheard of that one will see whales from the beach. Bears and deer are very often seen and there are many hiking trails with warnings about mountain lions. Rattlesnakes and tarantulas are found on mountain trails. Then there are the mountain lions of the sea - sharks - and they are sighted fairly often and every few years one attacks a swimmer or surfer. The power, the beauty, the danger, the wonder are all there. Today, three pieces really got me - one pretty dramatic and two more ordinary.

There was a song back in the 70's that had a chorus that went something like - "it never rains in California, but boy, don't they warn ya, it pours, man, it pours." It's been pouring where we live. Typical rainfall in Santa Barbara is about 15 inches a year spread over the rainy season. Now it is true that it usually comes in a few larger storms rather than a bunch of small ones. This week has been a doozy! Since Friday morning, at the San Marcos Pass which goes across the Santa Ynez Mountains just south of Santa Barbara, there has been almost 12 inches of rain and as much as 5 more are forecast before Wednesday night. The city of Santa Barbara has gotten 7+ in the same time period. It is wild to see the runoff in the creeks which just a short time ago were dry. And you can almost see the water rise in the man-made lake where we get much of our drinking water. Luckily there have not been any serious landslides but that still could happen.


Yesterday, as I was going into my office I looked down at the sidewalk and saw what I thought was a stick about 3 inches long that looked like a newt. I went into the office and remarked to Cheryl how cool the little stick was. A few minutes later as I walked past it on my way to one of our other buildings, I looked again... and sure enough, it was a newt. The coolest little thing. I moved him (without touching him - that can be bad for newts) so nobody would step on him.

The third piece happened this afternoon. We stopped by one of our favorite wineries - Beckmen - and on the way home, going down a country road, we came around a bend and there in the middle of the road was a beautiful coyote... with a rooster in his mouth. He dropped the rooster and ran when he saw us. The rooster was quite dead so it didn't do anyone any good. Hopefully the coyote came back and got his meal... why should the rooster have died for nothing?

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

beauty all around us if only we have eyes to see and ears to hear...

thanks to Fernando for pointing this out

beauty and fury

this photo is looking at the Gaviota Pass with the ocean to my back.

I tell people that I have the most beautiful commute in the world. I leave my house and drive south about 9 miles through the foothills of the Santa Ynez mountains and then through the Gaviota Pass. In some areas the mountains are covered with Live Oak trees, others with chaparral, others with golden grasses swaying in the winds, and still others with dramatic rock formations. I catch a few glimpses of some vineyards but most of them are to the north of my commute. I go through the pass and within about 1/4 of a mile I come to the ocean and make a left turn. For about the next 20 miles I drive with the ocean on my right and the mountains on my left. There are almost no buildings. The mountains continue their variety and occasionally are dotted with cattle or llamas grazing. I see the pelicans swooping along the shoreline and birds of prey watching for lunch or just enjoying the thermals. Every now and again, I glance out to the ocean and see a pod of dolphins swimming by. Traffic is generally pretty light. The final 5 miles are in the city of Goleta, traffic picks up and the view of the ocean is obscured. The mountains move a bit away from the coast but are still the dominant feature. It is easy to see why people refer to this area of the country as paradise.

heading west, about 7 miles east of the Gaviota Pass

But we can't forget the fury... The Jesusita fire is our third big fire in a very short time and this one was both dramatic and frightening. The flames have burned nearly 9000 acres as I write and at times the flames stretched over a five mile line along the mountains above the city of Santa Barbara and Goleta. The last I heard, 80 homes were confirmed destroyed. Many of my church members live in the mandatory evacuation zone and the church is located in the warning area. It is possible that one of our members lost a home and we know that some friends did. And then there was a small earthquake in nearby Ojai. At times the ash falls from the sky like snow and the ground looks like an old ash tray. Air quality is terrible down wind from the fire. When the rains come next fall, all of the areas burned will be subject to possible mud slides.

this is an AP photo by Keith Cullom

The beauty comes with a price and sometimes it is a high one.

Just as information, my home is far to the west of the fire. We can see the plume of smoke but haven't even had ash here.

a whale of a time

Santa Barbara is an inredible place to live for a lot of reasons. One is the closeness of the wild things of nature. A short hike into the mountains and you're in mountain lion country. A 22 mile ride in a boat and you can visit the least visited national pak - the Channel Islands National Park. A drive to Carpinteria and you can see the seals give birth. A drive up the coast and you can see elephant seals mating. Stand on the beach and watch the dolphins swim by...

The coastline runs east-west rather than north-south and there are a series of islands - the Channel Islands about 22 miles off the coast. Two currents, one from the north and one from the south meet in the channel. All of this adds up to wonderful feeding grounds for whales and because they migrate north-south, the curve in the coast here brings them very close to land.

This year, one or perhaps two adolescent whales found themselves very close to land... in the harbor as close as 30 feet from shore. They're feeding right at the mouth of the harbor and wandering in towards the marina. Here's a little video of one of them. Amazing!

Fledglings

Crows amaze me. They build strong communities, care for one another, even look after one another's young, form monogamous pairs, and they are committed parents. We have a nest in one of the palm trees in our back yard and on Monday a fledgling fell from the nest. It wasn't injured and quickly made its way into the bougainvillea at the corner of our patio.

We talked to some wildlife people who told us this is a common occurrence at this time of their life cycle and that as long as the fledgling was not injured, the parents would feed it until it was large enough to fly. They also protect it. Walk out our back door and immediately they begin to scold you. Before we knew what would happen, I put on some leather gloves and picked the fledgling up. The entire murder gather in the trees around our back yard - at least 20 crows - all yelling at me to leave the young one alone. When I put him back in the bougainvillea, all left except the parents.

Tuesday morning when I went for my daily walk, the parents followed me, yelling all of the time, for three blocks and then returned to watch over the young crow.

This morning a second fledgling fell from the nest so now we have two young crows in our back yard. It is noisy, but fun to watch them and wait with their parents until they take to the sky.