Freedom

For the last six weeks or so I have been using a prayer site called Sacred Space, run and maintained by the Irish Jesuits, to guide my meditation as my spiritual director is away on extended leave in Germany. It has been very fruitful. The meditation follows a pattern of becoming aware of the Presence, of Freedom and Conscious of God before examining and meditating on the the Gospel for the day and flowing from that mediation into prayer.

A few days ago this was the introduction to the Freedom portion, slightly different from the usual way..


Freedom
Many countries are at this moment suffering the agonies of war.
I bow my head in thanksgiving for my freedom.
I pray for all prisoners and captives.

And found myself thinking that perhaps I didn't really grasp what the Jesuits were on about. Poking about on other sites I have become more certain of my lack of understanding. I realise that I have grown up in a country that in my lifetime began with civil war, run by a one party colonial state, where freedom of speech was distinctly limited. The situation didn't improve after independence, being still a one party state with limited freedoms of association and speech. So quite possibly I do not understand freedom as someone who lives in the First World might.

So I reflect.....

Freedom.

Freedom from what?

Freedom to do what?

African Pied Wagtails

 I had a new app on my iPad which not only gave useful bird identification pictures, maps and pictures of nests but, to Vetboys pleasure, it also played back birds calls.

He was playing this African Pied Wagtails call and suddenly noticed that these two were getting closer and closer as their curiosity about this "bird" overcame their natural shyness. They came with in a meter or two of him but no one else could get close enough to take a good photo.


They did this any time we played the call. Small maintained that they were two lonely bachelors looking for a likely female, while my husband thought that they were defending their territory.

What ever the reason, no other birds responded in similar manner but we did have a lot of fun watching these little guys up close.

Kariba

We have just been on our annual houseboat trip to Kariba. 
Here are a couple of photos of the Lake taken with my iPhone - not the best for a panoramic view of water, mountain and sky but the best I can manage.