Sunday recap:14th February 2016

It's been a few weeks since I last participated in the Sunday Post so I have a few things to recap. Don't forget to head over to the Caffeinated Book Reviewer to Sign up.

What I've been reading:

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

• An interesting concept, but a book I struggled to get my teeth into. 
•  This will count towards the following challenges; Alphabet Soup, 12 Months Classics Challenge, 100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge.

The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan
The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan
The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan

• This is turning out to be a great series and I'm really enjoying my walks to work. 
• These books count towards the following challenges; Alphabet Soup, Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge, 100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge.

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

• This completed my read of my first series of the year, albeit back to front...
• This book counts towards the following challenges; Alphabet Soup, 2016 Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge, 2016 Series a Month Challenge,  100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge.

Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett

• I'm finally making progress on my goal to finish this series this year! 

Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth

• The first book in my second series of the year Call the Midwife is just as good as the tv series it inspired. Now just to see if I can read the rest of the series this month!

What I've Posted:

• Prince of Fools - Mark Lawrence
• The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins
• Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett
• The Spellsong War - L. E. Modesitt Jr
• The Hero and the Crown - Robin McKinley
• Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
• Emperor of Thorns - Mark Lawrence
• Mort - Terry Pratchett

My Bookish Resolutions

Reading Challenges:

• I have read 9/41 Discworld books
• I have read 9/100 books in 2016 so far

Blogging Challenges:

I've been making reasonable progress with my blogging challenges. I'm working my way through reviews of books I've read over the last few years and have been writing, if not posting, reviews of more recent reads.

Personal Challenges:

My personal challenges could be going better. I'm at a neutral weight to my last loss, so not exactly on target. My swimming has been getting better and I'm up to quarter mile sets (when I was younger I used to do half mile warm ups). I've also done my first tumble turns for years in the last couple of weeks. 

Sunday recap: 24th January 2016

I've not managed so well this week. I felt a little under the weather and it kind of put thoughts of healthy eating, reading and swimming out of my mind. I have managed to listen to most of a 30 hour audio book however.

Don't forget to head over to the Caffeinated Book Reviewer and sign up.

What I've been reading:

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

• An interesting book, but perhaps not entirely to my taste while being every bit the page turner.
•  This will count towards the following challenges; Alphabet Soup, 12 Months Classics Challenge, 100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge.

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

• This book is very different than it's prequel/sequel. I'm not quite sure I've read them in the right order. 
• This book counts towards the following challenges; Alphabet Soup, 2016 Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge, 2016 Series a Month Challenge,  100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge.
• This book is also the second of the first series nominated for the Flights of Fantasy Book Club hosted by Alexa Loves Books.

The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan

• This book is just as good as the first in the series and I've barely been able to stop listening to it. It equates to nearly 30 hours of listening however I have very few hours of it left.
• This book counts towards the following challenges; Alphabet Soup, Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge, 100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge.

What I've Posted This Week:

I've only managed one post this week

• The Eye of The World - Robert Jordan

My Bookish Resolutions

Reading Challenges:

• I have read 9/41 Discworld books
• I have read 3/100 books in 2016 so far

Blogging Challenges:

• I feel like a blogging routine is something that is evading me.
• I have made progress towards cataloguing my 'library', here. 
• So far I have managed to review all of the books I've finished so far this year! Huzzah, one New Years Resolution going well.
• I've set up the basics for some reviews I'm planning to write.

Personal Challenges:

• I managed to maintain a neutral weight this week.
• I only went swimming once this week and only managed 42 lengths.
• I had 2 fizzy drinks this week. A step backwards.

A Couple of Interesting Articles I've seen this week

• This post from Math With Bad Drawings which draws together two of my greatest loves; Maths and Storytelling. It's a relatively intense look at life from the perspective of some of the most prominent numbers we can be taught.
• This post about the semantics of translating from maths into other languages. In school we were taught the two different definitions of a Billion, on the basis that financially we as a nation now use the short-scale version and that historically we have used the long scale version. As a maths graduate and computer programmer I do wish they'd tidied up the code they inserted into the article however as I feel there are a couple of steps which can only cause confusion.
• And finally this post which says that Dirty Dancing is to be remade. I have mixed feelings on the subject. On the one hand I love the film and am a bit concerned a remake could ruin the charm of the original. On the other I always wanted to know what happened after the summer ended and a part of me hopes this may open up avenues for that to be explored. 

A quote from the bible for the week

Purer were her Nazarites than snow, Whiter than milk, ruddier of body than rubies, Of sapphire their form. - Lamentations 4:7

Sunday recap: 17th January 2016

The second full week of 2016 and it's been hectic, Cubs started back but thanks to some last minute meeting cancellation I wasn't quite ready and we had a games night.

I actually managed to get quite a lot of reading done this week. I finished two books and am well on my way to finishing a third. 

In other news my county had it's first snow of 2016 on Thursday evening, which saw me walking home to a numb head and then heading out to my in-laws down some twisty lanes while the snow flurried. My father in laws birthday being something I can't miss even if that stretch of road makes me nervous at the best of times following some ice last winter. 

Head over to the Caffeinated Book Reviewer and link up.

What I've been reading:

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

• An interesting book, but perhaps not entirely to my taste which is taking me a little while to edge my way through.
•  This will count towards the following challenges; Alphabet Soup, 12 Months Classics Challenge, 100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge.

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

• An exceptional fantasy story which I listened to with audible. So good in fact that I used all of my spare time over the first couple of days this week to listen to it and finished it off all in a hurry.
• This book counts towards the following challenges; Alphabet Soup, Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge, 100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge.

Worth the lies by Mara Jacobs

• I love Mara Jacobs Worth series, unlike a lot of romance authors with on going stories she puts time into her characters. They get a real story and real backgrounds and don't feel like the same character every time juste wearing different clothes!
• This book counts towards the following challenges; Alphabet Soup, 100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge.

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

• I have to say that when I received this book I was a little put off by the cover. It looked kind of trashy, I'm loving it though.
• This book counts towards the following challenges; Alphabet Soup, 2016 Flights of Fantasy Reading Challenge, 2016 Series a Month Challenge,  100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge.
• This book is also the first book of the first series nominated for the Flights of Fantasy Book Club hosted by Alexa Loves Books.

What I've Posted This Week:

• Millie Marrotta's Tropical Wonderland Bird Nest
• The Foster Husband by Pippa Wright

My Bookish Resolutions

Reading Challenges:

• I have read 9/41 Discworld books
• I have read 2/100 books in 2016 so far

Blogging Challenges:

• I still don't feel as though I've made progress towards a blogging routine, although I managed to pattern a couple of posts from last week I still feel as though I'm getting into the swing of normal life.
• I have made  no further progress towards cataloguing my 'library', here. 
• So far I have written a couple of reviews of recently read books. 
• I've written a bit for some backlist books I wanted to review.

Personal Challenges:

• This week I lost another 2lbs. I was a little stricter with myself in terms of snacking. 
• I went swimming twice this week. On Tuesday I swam 64 lengths and on Friday I swam 40 lengths, meaning I've officially managed to swim my first mile of the year, if not twice in one week!
• I had no fizzy drinks this week! 

Sunday recap: 10th January 2016

The Sunday Post is hosted by the Caffeinated Book Reviewer and you can sign up here.

This is the first time I've ever posted any kind of recap post, and for the most part there doesn't seem to be an awful lot to recap this week. 

As part of my Bookish Resolutions I decided to try and organise some kind of blogging routine. As yet this year I seem to have little routine, however this seems like a good place to start! I plan to use these posts to keep track of my progress with various challenges as well as my Bookish Resolutions. 

So for the first time ever here goes!

What I've been reading:

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

• An interesting book, but perhaps not entirely to my taste while being every bit the page Turner.
•  This will count towards the following challenges; Alphabet Soup, 12 Months Classics Challenge, 100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge

The Eye of The World by Robert Jordan 

• I've actually been listening to this on audible. It's surprisingly therapeutic to listen and colour, or cook, or clean. I've had whole new realms of reading time opened up to me!
• The audiobook has set chapters out differently than the paper book, but I have about 9 Audio chapters to go with this book and so far I'm loving it.
• This will count towards the following challenges:  Alphabet Soup, 100+ Books Challenge and You Read How Many Books Challenge

What I've Posted This Week:

I've actually extended it this week to include everything I've posted after 1st January.

• 2016 12 Months Classics Challenge
• Goodreads Awards Challenge
• 100+ Books Challenge
• You Read How Many Books? Challenge
• Millie Marrotta's Tropical Wonderland Butterfly
• The Soprano Sorceress - L. E. Modesitt Jr

My Bookish Resolutions

Reading Challenges:

• I have read 9/41 Discworld books
• I have read 1/100 books in 2016 so far

Blogging Challenges:

• I haven't really established a blogging routine yet, but as this is week 1 and I spent some of it signing up for challenges I feel this is justified!
• I have made progress towards cataloguing my 'library', here. In some ways this feels like a lot of progress, however since I married the flat I've been sharing with my husband can only hold a small portion of my books, the bulk are at my parents so I can't see myself listing them all until at least mid year. At present the list consists of those in the flat and those I easily remember. I'd also like to amend the list so it is possible to see what I've read and not just what I've reviewed.
• So far I have not written any reviews of recently read books. 
• I've written a bit for some backlist books I wanted to review. You'll see some of these coming soon.

Personal Challenges:

• I lost 1 pound this week and am aiming to lose 6 pounds this month. So I need to try harder next week!
• I went swimming twice this week. On Tuesday I swam 40 lengths and on Thursday I swam 56 lengths. So not quite a mile either time, but roughly a mile and a half over the two. This could have been better but it came down to timings!
• I had 6 fizzy drinks this week. An appalling failure!

A Couple of Interesting Articles I've seen this week

• This interesting article from the Independent on Natural Flood defences in the UK. It appealed to me on a basic human interest level, but also on from a scientific point of view. It's interesting I feel how restoring natural habitats can have impacts on flood waters both good and bad.
• This article about the trends of publishing in Children's books in 2015 and predictions for 2016. It highlighted some interesting statistics about book diversity that I saw in an article towards the end of last year. 

A quote from the bible for the week

'Behold, God is my helper; The Lord is the Upholder of my life.'

Psalms 54:4

Genesis 3:16

"Then God said to the woman, "I will cause you to have much trouble when you are pregnant, and when you give birth to children, you will have great pain. You will greatly desire your husband, but he will rule over you." "

It's accurate, women do suffer during pregnancy and birth. However it is also something which a history teacher I had would call 'a convenient story created by men for men to control women.' It is a fact that much of the bible in the Old Testament was written down long after the events actually took place. There is no reason why it couldn't have been added by men as an afterthought. However we do biologically function in the way described above, so I'm not sure I'm convinced.

Rowen

Genesis 3:14-15

"The Lord God said to the snake, "Because you did this, a curse will be put upon you. You will be cursed as no other animal, tame or wild, will ever be. You will crawl on your stomach, and you will eat dust all the days of your life.

I will make you and the woman enemies of each other. Your descendants and her descendants will be enemies. One of her descendents will crush your head, and you will bite his heel."

I don't know if it's just me, but the stuff from the second verse sounds a bit like the story about Achilles heel. I may be wrong but it sounds right to me. In which case it came true and I think that as much as anything should invoke confidence in God.

The first verse is less true, because although no other animal immediately  springs to mind, you actually have slugs and snails, and eels and worms, all of whom crawl on their stomachs, albeit the eel spends most of his time in water.

Rowen

Genesis 3:8-13

"Then they heard the Lord God walking in the garden during the cool part of the day, and the man and his wife hid from the Lord God among the trees in the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said, "Where are you?"

The man answered, "I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid."

God asked, "Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?"

The man said, "You gave this woman to me and she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it."

Then the Lord God said to the woman, "How could you have done such a thing?"

She answered, "The snake tricked me, so I ate the fruit." "

Once again her actions, and his, are typically human. They did not want to take the blame so they blamed another. While it was true that the fruit was provided by those mentioned, each of them is at fault for eating from the tree when they were told not to as they each actively made the decision to eat the fruit themselves. I think part of the issue is not so much that they ate the fruit, but that they are unwilling to face up to their actions.

We all sin, but God is willing to forgive us so long as we admit we sinned, say sorry and ask for forgiveness.

Rowen

Genesis 3:6-7

"The woman saw that the tree was beautiful, that its fruit was good to eat, and that it would make her wise. So she took some of it's fruit and ate it. She also gave some of the fruit to her husband, and he ate it.

Then, it was as if their eyes were opened. They realised they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves."

I think this demonstrates pretty typical human behaviour. We are never content with what we have, we always want more. I suppose I'm a pretty good example of this, I have lots of books, but if I go into a bookshop I can't help but want to buy more of them, despite the fact I have a good couple hundred books I havn't read.

The point is though, she wanted something she didn't have. She took it. And in the process she lost a gift she had which was precious. Her innocence.

Rowen

Genesis 3:1-5

"Now the snake was the most clever of all the wild animals the Lord God made. One day the snake said to the woman,"Did God really say you must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden?"

The woman answered the snake, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But God told us, 'you nust not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch it, or you will die.'"

But the snake said to the woman, "You will not die. God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about good and evil and you will be like God!" "

The woman, at this stage is doing as she should, listening to God, and not eating from the tree. She has even gone so far as to tell the snake what she has been told. The passage shows the snake to be deceitful, I think it is this description of the snake which promoted a lot of it's common 'characteristics' which are used throughout folklore and fiction. A more recent example being where J.K.Rowling used the snake as the emblem for the house of Slytherine who're supposed to be cunning and wily people.

Rowen

Genesis 2:25

"The man and his wife were naked, but they were not ashamed."

The way they are at this point in time is because they are still innocent. Neither of them has eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge, they are wholly alive and able to accept and enjoy every one of life's pleasures.

It is also because they are one whole, and it is just them, so they are fully comfortable and they don't Have anything to be afraid of.

Rowen

Genesis 2:21-24

"So the Lord God caused the man to sleep very deeply, and while he was asleep, God removed one of the man's ribs. Then God closed up the man's skin at the place where he took the rib. The Lord God used the rib from the man to make a woman, and then he brought the woman to the man.

And the man said,

"Now, this is someone whose bones come from my bones, whose body came from my body.

I will call her 'woman', because she was taken out of man."

So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body."

This is the first verse, possibly the only verse, which explains why marriage is holy. It is holy because it is two separate people who stem from one place, committing themselves to becoming one whole. A whole which will stand the test of time and not fragment.

Rowen

Genesis 2:18-20

"Then the Lord God said,"It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is right for him."

From the ground God formed every wild animal and every bird in the sky, and he brought them to the man so the man could name them. Whatever the man called each living thing, that became it's name. The man gave names to all the tame animals, to all the birds in the sky, and to all the wild animals. But Adam did not find a helper which was right for him."

I think that the moral of this verse is that we are at our best when we are balanced by our equals. We are not suited to be dominated or dominating. Animals and birds are good and beautiful and helpful and at times may even stay loneliness, but none of them is any match for having a human who we can sit and have a conversation with.

Rowen

Genesis 2:15-17

"The Lord God put the man in the garden of Eden to care for it and work it. The Lord God commanded him, "You may eat the fruit from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat the fruit from the tree which gives the knowledge of good and evil. If you ever eat fruit from that tree you will die!" "

A good deterrent which was ignored. It makes sense that God should want to keep his people innocent, humans are much less cruel and careless as small children, until they pick up the bad habits surrounding them.

Rowen

Genesis 2:10-14

" A river flowed through Eden and watered the garden. From there the river branched out to become four rivers. The first river, named Pishon, flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is excellent. Bdellium and onyx are also found there. The second river, named Gihon, flows around the whole land of Cush. The third river, named Tigris, flows out of Assyria towards the east. The fourth river is the Euphrates."

I have a theory, yet another one, that these rivers are in fact the oceans, and as such they flow around the continents rather than nations within a continent. As there was once just one supercontinent I suppose they could have started as Rivers but grown to Oceans once the continents separated. It makes sense as there are four rivers and four lands, and we now have four continents. Or at least it makes sense in my head, what d'you think?

Rowen

Genesis 2:8-9

"Then the Lord God planted a Garden in the east, in a place called Eden, and put the man he had formed into it. The Lord God caused every beautiful tree and every tree that was good for food to grow out of the ground. In the middle of the garden, God put the tree that gives life and also the tree that gives the knowledge of good and evil."

Are the trees the same tree? Or two separate trees? I don't know, but I've always thought of them as one tree in an isolated clearing at the very centre of a large and circular garden, a bit like the botanical gardens but outside. I suppose the eden project could be a good representation of this as well, only it's much too small.

I wonder if God put the tree there because he knew that humans would have to have that knowledge one day, but maybe he thought he'd be able to control when we were given it.

The man that God placed there, Adam, I think is his special person, from reading Chapter one I think that he didn't place all the people he created here, but just the one who was most special to him, maybe the first one he created?

Rowen

Genesis 2:4-7

" This is the story of the creation of the sky and the earth. When the Lord God first made the earth and the sky, there were still no plants on the earth. Nothing was growing in the fields  because the Lord God had not yet made it rain on the land. And there was no person to care for the ground, but a mist would rise up from the earth and water all the ground.

Then the Lord God took dust from the ground and formed a man from it. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nose, and the man became a living person."

An introduction into the story of a lifetime, but an introduction into the specifics after the prologue has already been told. We have already been told how the earth was made in General terms but now, this passage says we're getting to the specifics. It also disperses some confusion I had concerning some passages from the funeral verses... eg 'dust to dust'. God made us from dust so we must go back to dust... maybe this is why our skin becomes dust when it dies and falls off?

Rowen

Genesis 2:1-3

"So the sky, the earth, and all that filled them were finished. By the seventh day God finished the work he had been doing, so he rested from all his work. God blessed the seventh day and made it a holy day, because on that day he rested from all the work he had done in creating the world."

This in my opinion is a very clear message. All work and no play is bad for us. It is even bad for God, hence he rested. I always picture him on a sunlounge in Barbados as a kind of old man in a Hawaiian shirt and drinking a cocktail at this point... not too sure why. I don't think that we should take the rest and relaxation to the extreme some people do where they can't even switch on a lightswitch on the holy day. However I do think that we shouldn't work or do homework or anything which stresses us out on the holy day. I think we should do only things we enjoy, intermingled with a little praising God.

The story of creation is one they get you to tell throughout school using the media of drawing, stained glass windows, story boards, paper plates... I drew this picture in every one of these ways throughout my education. I suppose the reason for this is because it's something which causes a lot of debate but which even small children can be interested in... even they kind've get it, that yearning need to know how it all happened. The big question of 'WHY AM I HERE?'. I'm sure everyone has thought at some point, for what reason do I exist, I seem kind of pointless. This story gives one answer to that question, God created you because he felt you were needed and God knows best.

Rowen

Genesis 1:29-31

"God said, "Look, I have given you all the plants that have grain for seeds and all the trees whose fruits have seeds in them. They will be food for you. I have given all the green plants as food for every wild animal, every bird of the air, and every crawling animal." And it happened. God looked at everything he had made, and it was very good. Evening passed, and morning came. This was the sixth day."

At this stage the whole process of creation has taken place, perhaps the reason that Chapter One ends with this verse. The world is there as we know it, fully populated, and all in just six days... something which always has and always will blow my mind. Although I can cope with it slightly better with the use of my altered day lengths which you'll know what I'm talking about if you read a couple of my previous posts.

God on the sixth day, after he has made us masters of everything, wants us to know that he has provided for us. We will Never go without so long as he is there looking after us. And he's kept his promise, as long as we're willing to work together as a species, because the world has food in plenty, even when there're droughts or famines, I'm not sure I'd put the blame on God so much as the blame of the results on people not working together. Parts of the world produce excess food, and other parts can't produce enough, this shouldn't matter as long as we co-operate and share what we do have, do our very best to make it last.

An example of this which I'd like to use is a famine, which we covered for my A-level history course, that took place in Russia during Stalin's period in power. The country was effectively war-torn for most of the Soviet era and under Stalin it was no different. There weren't enough people in the rural areas to produce food for everyone, they very often barely produced enough for themselves, but Stalin came along and took what they could not give, so people burned crops rather than give them up. Most people would have seen sense at this point and tried to encourage people back to agriculture, but Stalin punished them. What resulted was some of the worst famines of modern times, and in what is technically an Economically developed country, it was one of only two superpowers in the world. However people died in their millions, they boiled shoe leather to chew and they ate their dead, in some places they deliberately killed the weak for food. The reason for all of this is Pride. Pride of just one man which wouldn't let him accept foreign aid.

I'm not saying that all the world's problems can be fixed by the giving and accepting of aid, but it certainly can help. I think that we should also try to figure out how to prevent disasters such as this, which are man-made where we can and try to sort them while we still can.

Surely that's what being masters means?

Rowen

Genesis 1:26-28

"So God said,"Let us make human beings in our image and likeness. And let them rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the tame animals, over all the earth, and over all the small crawling animals on the earth."

So God created human beings in his image. In the image of God he created them. He created them male and female. God blessed them and said, "Have many children and grow in number. Fill the earth and be its master. Rule over the fish in the sea and over the birds in the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

While reading this passage a couple of things struck me which I've never noticed before.

The first is that it says God said 'in our image' not in my image. This leads to the implication that there are other Gods, something which is contradicted time and again throughout the bible. However it is supported by some of the phrasing found in the Creed said each sunday which goes something to the effect of 'God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God' although it is talking about the relationship of Jesus to God the father it too implies that there are other Gods, lesser Gods. Maybe God is the most powerful, knowing and loving, but it doesn't discount the fact that maybe there could be other Gods who support our God. I guess it leads credence to my opinion, shared by some, that following any religion and worshipping any actual God, whilst striving to do good would lead you to heaven. I had an RE teacher once who said that 'God's house has many rooms', what if each room is for followers of a different religion?

The second thing that I noticed which I hadn't before is that he created human beings in the same way that he created all the other creatures. This somewhat pacified a lot of confusion I had carried around for a very long time, because I always thought that when God created humans he created only Adam and Eve. This led to confusion because I could mever understand from this how Cain and Abel managed to get wives when they were Adam and Eve's only children. However my realisation leads to a further realisation that Adam and Eve weren't the only humans he created, but they were the special ones, his 'pet' people... for want of a better word.

One last thing is that it says he made humans the master of the earth. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but it certainly gives huge sway to the whole eco-movement, something I was already inclined to support, because there can be good masters and bad masters. A good master would ask for only so much as his servant is able to give nothing more, because he knows that asking for more will weaken his servent and shorten the time he can serve. A bad master will demand everything he wants when he wants it and you'd better deliver or pay the price. With the earth it's a bit like that. We have recently been bad masters, stripping the earth bare of all it's resources for our own material wealth, we've pumped the sky and the water full of toxins and pollutants. We have in short been killing our planet. For many hundreds of years, thousands maybe, the way people lived was hand to mouth, they would take only so much as they needed only when they needed it. That wasn't a particularly good way either, although it protected the planet it could also lead to large-scale death as people didn't get what they needed. I'd like to think that nowadays we're somewhere in between. We try to live comfortably and securely, preventing death where possible, whilst trying to reduce and counteract the poisons we released.

I got a lot from those three short verses, way more than I expected to. I'm wondering what anyone else thinks?

Rowen

Genesis 1:24-25

" Then God said, "Let the earth be filled with animals, each producing more of its own kind. Let there be tame animals and small crawling animals and wild animals, and let each produce more of its own kind." and it happened.

So God made the wild animals, the tame animals, and all the small crawling animals to produce more of their own kind. God saw that this was good."

A variety of animals were created and in order with the way that science says that they evolved. first the water animals, then the birds, and then just about everything else. The tame animals makes me think of things such as sheep and cows and even I suppose dogs, animals which may not have always been tame but which certainly were tameable, the ones which humans would be able to put to their own uses. The small crawling animals makes me think of things such as bugs and insects, snails, spiders and snakes, everything which thinking of makes your skin crawl. The wild animals makes me think of ferocious beasts; lions and tigers, wolves, reptiles and even dinosaurs.

God obviously had foresight, he obviously foresaw the damage our species would do and tried to prevent it... at least to some extent.

What does the description of the animals in this passage make you think of?

Rowen