Grace and greetings.This morning brought a lot of excitement in the village, as a bear was found wandering around and then later took a nap on the beach. It was lying around for a while, so I went down to get some pictures along with about twenty other cars and vehicles. The bear was about 10 to 15 yards away from all the people, and about 5 yards on shore. It must have been too tired to do anything, but lie there. Without the ice, the bears are having to swim sometimes hundreds of miles before getting any rest. Here are a couple of my pictures. I can now say that I have seen my first Polar Bear in the village of Barrow.
I was looking at a calendar yesterday while waiting in the hospital, and noticed that today, (September 11) was named Patriot's Day in the United States. 
I did not realize that it had become an official stated day. I am sure most of us can remember where we were seven years ago. (I cannot believe that it has been seven years already). We were in the process of moving from Iowa to New Mexico. Kim and Sam were already in Roswell, and I had closed out things in Iowa. I left Davenport, IA about noon on Monday September 10th and took a detour to Birmingham, Alabama to see my daughter and my grand-daughter, already 5 months old. I had driven until three in the morning pulling into a hotel just outside Birmingham. I woke up about 9 AM or so, just in time to turn on the TV with pictures of the one Tower on fire. Just then, the second Tower was struck. I have always associated this day to my first day "in the South". Since
I did not realize that it had become an official stated day. I am sure most of us can remember where we were seven years ago. (I cannot believe that it has been seven years already). We were in the process of moving from Iowa to New Mexico. Kim and Sam were already in Roswell, and I had closed out things in Iowa. I left Davenport, IA about noon on Monday September 10th and took a detour to Birmingham, Alabama to see my daughter and my grand-daughter, already 5 months old. I had driven until three in the morning pulling into a hotel just outside Birmingham. I woke up about 9 AM or so, just in time to turn on the TV with pictures of the one Tower on fire. Just then, the second Tower was struck. I have always associated this day to my first day "in the South". Since I was driving, it did not really effect my travel plans, but I know it effected many others.
I also received a message this morning that one of the more mainline Imams in the United States has died this week. Imam Warith Deen Mohammed, who was the former leader of the Nation of Islam and later broke with the racially tinged teachings of his father, Elijah Muhammad, and inspired thousands of African-American Muslims to follow mainstream Islam. (Minister Louis Farrakhan later broke away from Mohammed and claimed the leadership of the Nation of Islam as his own.) According to a press release, "Imam Mohammed was the first Muslim to offer the invocation in the U.S. Senate, in 1990. He was well known as a strong proponent of civil rights and community development, and of better interfaith relations...including with the Presbyterian Church (USA)." The article does not mention any involvement trying to heal the impact of the 9/11 event, but I am sure he was one of the National leaders trying to address the fear that gripped the world for those first several weeks. Unfortunately, there are still people who lump all Muslims together, which is very unfortunate. There is no one group who can speak or act for the entire body of believers. Just as the Religious Right or the Moral Majority in its day, did not speak for all Christians, nor did those who participated in the acts of violence speak for all Muslims.
I hope you are able to take a moment to remember all loss of life that day, and the days that followed.
Peace and blessings.
1 comment:
Wow! A polar bear! I think if I saw one in the wild, I would need to change my pants shortly thereafter!
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