December 22, 2025 a thought for today, Everyone for himself, God for us all. Dutch Proverb

Photos in my life yesterday

This first challenge upload was “presents.” There are a few outside of the image. Much of my gift giving has become by gift certificates. 

The second upload challenge was titled “festive food.” This was among the many Christmas sweets we had at a fellowship and carol sing. 

The last upload yesterday was “my choice” and is one of my “still life” series.

Life today. Yesterday’s sermon was a good one. One particular passage in the message stuck with me. The quote, We are not humans having a spiritual experience. We are spirits having a human experience. I found that it is a quote attributed to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit priest. Anyway I sat up and took notice when I heard that in the message.

Lowell and Rebecca took Sue and me to York Steak House to celebrate my belated birthday. They were baby-sitting two of my great grand sons, William and Benjamin. So I got to visit with them too. Being with them is a rare treat. 

I didn’t have time to upload yesterday’s photo and Instagram page so I completed setting them up and uploading the first thing this morning.

I made finishing touching to the Poinsettia dedication page and started and finished next Sunday’s bulletin. It looks like I will be able to complete the printing for them as well and the Christmas Eve bulletin on Wednesday morning. 

Taking care of my hydroponic house plant garden is on the schedule of my cell phone that reminds me when it is time. I want to get to making the vegetable soup for dinner so I may put that one on the agenda for tomorrow. 

The word today is passion.   Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence. Henry David Thoreau.  Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even. Horace.  I see my path, but I don't know where it leads. Not knowing where I'm going is what inspires me to travel it. Rosalia de Castro.  As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears. John Locke.  Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. Abraham Lincoln.  Those who tread among serpents, and along a tortuous path, must use the cunning of the serpent. Thomas Becket.  I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. George Washington.  Adversity is the first path to truth. Lord Byron.  Let the path be open to talent. Napoleon Bonaparte.  Reasoning draws a conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience. Roger Bacon.  A trail through the mountains, if used, becomes a path in a short time, but, if unused, becomes blocked by grass in an equally short time. Mencius.  This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path. Sitting Bull.  Most safely shall you tread the middle path. Ovid.  He who walks in the eightfold noble path with unswerving determination is sure to reach Nirvana. Buddha.  What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  Few cross the river of time and are able to reach non-being. Most of them run up and down only on this side of the river. But those who when they know the law follow the path of the law, they shall reach the other shore and go beyond the realm of death. Horace.  If you would have your son to walk honourably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path, but teach him to walk firmly over them - not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone. Anne Bronte.  The best path through life is the highway. Henri Frederic Amiel.  

Article summary. This is one of those articles centered around one of my favorite subjects which can be any thing connected to the welfare of animals, wild and domestic. The article title is Polar bears are adapting to climate change at a genetic level – and it could help them avoid extinction. Alice Godden, Senior Research Associate, School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia. At the conversation.com. It opened by mentioning that the Arctic Ocean is at the warmest it as been in 125,000 years. It went to relate as I gather that two-thirds of the polar bear population will be extinct y 2050. Apparently there is a study going on something that is happening in the “genome” of the bears that may eventually allow them t0 adapt to warmer temperatures. Bears in different parts of the world are being studied in the effort to help along the efforts to keep their bodies and circumstances alive as a species. As the article moved on it relates how the melting ice in the habitat of the bears leads to the land that the bears need to stand and moves on to find food and find each other.  With the melting ice there is the “high levels of rain” as well as wind and the steep mountain sides. I learned in the article that the DNA of the bears can in time adapt. In the mean time the ice is still melting. Another thing that in part of the studies is that environmental stress can be too strong and detrimental to make improvements faster.  There has been some studies that hopefully show that the genes and the stress may be adapting. This all involves their ability to adapt and times when food is scarce. In ending the article it is stated that climate change is “reshaping polar bear habitats” which includes the land they live on, their physical changes and their food sources and availability. 

It is going to be homemade vegetable soup and peanut butter toast for dinner.

Photos in my life today

My first upload to day is “Santa”. I only had one ‘Santa’ available this holiday season. I have used this one before. On this one I used a filter to make it a little more festive. 

The next upload is “holiday bokeh” (Bokeh is the aesthetic quality of the blur in the out-of-focus parts of a photograph..... "haze" or "blur," representing pleasing, soft background). This is the tree in my house.  I was playing with settings and got his image. 

The last image for today is “wrapping”. In this major holiday seasons many photo challenges are the same in many different photo groups. I belong to four. So I will sometimes have repeat single word assignment. This was one such event. This is my Christmas ‘wrappings’ for this year

Joy 

this is one of my relaxing landscape scenes taken in a warmer season