Michael and the Dodo

Col is back from a weekend camping in deepest darkest Dorset - with the metal detectorists.  He seems to have had fun and has found rather an interesting silver ring which will be appearing on his blog at some stage - linked to this via The Captain's Log.  I am glad to have him back.

I am still trying to work out a review of Michael Blencowe's amazing "GONE, Stories of Extinction", one that doesn't simply involve my quoting the whole book in a series of blogs.  Just for a start, there are copyright laws...

It is so well written, making a subject that could be unbearably heartbreaking both fascinating and educational, and somehow, in spite of everything, positive.  Positive even though the author cannot see any hope, any human solutions to the crisis engulfing both the animal creation and us.

And in that I can only agree with him.  We are in such a mess and its getting worse.  But I am certain that Jehovah will, as he has promised, "bring to ruin those ruining the earth".  Have any of God's promises ever failed? They never have and they never will. Isn't that the very meaning of his name?

Anyway, here is another quote, from the chapter on the Dodo:

"A few weeks earlier I had sat watching a dodo dancing awkwardly in Brighton city centre. Some poor soul, dressed in a furry, orange dodo costume, was handing out flyers promoting a new local takeaway, part of the global Dodo Pizza franchise. The dodo resurrected again, an absurd creature, a bird too stupid to survive, complicit in its own extinction. By caricaturing the dodo we have distanced ourselves from the crime we committed. The dodo was a bird, a wonderful bird that lived in an island in the middle of the ocean. And we killed it."

So, by promoting the theory of Evolution - and it is just a theory  - has the world worked to distance us not only from our Creator and what he is so urgently telling us,  but also from what we have done to the animal creation that He entrusted to our care?  

Why have we been so destructive? What is the force propelling us, the force that seems set on destroying every beautiful animal along with the whole planet?

I know of no better explanation than the Biblical one, nor any other explanation that gives hope, real hope.  

And I must keep thinking about this review, as I want to have it ready to publish after M.A.B.L.E. - my publisher's online book launch this Autumn. Its just possibly I may pick up a few more blogreaders during the sessions, as the publisher is going to feature our blogs. You can find the details here:

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/m-a-b-l-eri

I am trying to define why it is that I find GONE positive in spite of the story it has to tell.

And I would have posted a photo of the Dodo above, had we not extincted the poor creature many moons ago.

When paradise is restored, here on the earth, under the loving reign of the Kingdom of God, will we get the Dodo back?  How I hope so.  So IF I am there and IF I am blogging then, I could have a dodo photo heading my blog. I could even have one of the lovely creatures sitting beside me as I write this under a shady tree, or in whatever habitat the Dodo prefers.

It would be like being in Wonderland - only infinitely better, as the Dodo and I would be in the paradise earth, enjoying "exquisite delight in the abundance of peace".