For of Such is the Kingdom of Heaven

Tea: Stomach Soother

Music: Pink Floyd, "Learning to Fly"

Time: Night.

Christians, of which I am (or at the least aspire to be) one, are told we should have childlike faith.

Then we're told to shut up, listen and accept, because that's what good kids do.

This is what's known, or should be known, as an Epic Theology Fail.

Have you been around real children? They ask questions. Over and over. About everything.

What's that? What does that word mean? Why did that man do that? Why? Why? Why?

Children throw themselves into their interests. When I was in grade school, I read everything I could find on ghosts, dinosaurs and Bigfoot. (Yeah, I was a weird kid.) I couldn't get enough, even if I did have trouble sleeping sometimes.

And when they see something wrong, they'll let you know about it -- and they know what needs to be done.

You won't hear, That lady looks hungry. Let's tell him he's going to hell if he doesn't accept Jesus right now! or Look, she fell down and she's bleeding. Let's go hand her a tract and ask her if she has found God yet! from a four-year-old.

Here's what you'll hear:

That man's cold. We should give him a coat.

That woman's lonely. Someone should go sit by her.

That little boy is crying. Let's help him.

That's the faith of a child: Open to joy and quick to offer solace in sorrow, quick to make a new friend or forgive an old one, voraciously seeking knowledge and unafraid to ask the hard questions in order to get it.

Does that mean maturity is somehow bad? Absolutely not. There's a world of difference between childlike and childish. But wonder, fairness and curiosity don't inhibit growth. They foster it.

Were I a preacher, there might be a sermon in that.

Dinogeek Love

Tea: Arctic Storm

Music: Yes, "Hearts"

Time: Night

I've already admitted it once here. Since childhood, I've been an utter fanboy of all things Mesozoic (Permian, too) and reptilian -- dinosaurs, archosaurs, plesiosaurs, pliosaurs, mosasaurs, pelycosaurs, pterosaurs, phyto ... okay, you get the picture.

Now, it was hardly the high point of my Valentine's Day to read that two new species of meat-eaters (which, as we all know, are the coolest of the cool) have been unearthed in Africa.

But, hey ... a day filled with love and 25-foot carnivores? Could I really ask for more and not seem greedy?

I didn't think so, either.

Cup XXXVI: Stories in Stone, Told by the Unlucky

Tea: Earl Grey Smokey

Music: Endusk, "Moth" and "Four"

Time: Night, and ages ago

Today, while watching a frightened black Labrador puppy being cajoled into a new -- and better -- life, I broke off a bit of yellow-gray rock.

It is full of fossils -- delicate ridged shells, narrower than the nail of one of my little toes. This part of the world is haunted by the stone ghosts -- the tiny and the titanic -- of an ancient sea.

I wasn't here the day this particular fossil bed was laid down. But most likely, something happened to flood the seafloor with mud, burying everything in its path. Over time, rock replaced bone and shell and exoskeleton.

We learn about the life of the past from the lives lost by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A chunk of the universe falls to Earth, and it's exit dinosaurs, stage left. A volcano in Idaho lets go, and a herd of rhinoceroses in Nebraska never knows what hit it. A sabre-toothed cat moves in on a mastodon, stuck in a sticky black trap, and both of them sink out of sight.

Like the gastropods and gorgosaurs, the tiny horses and giant beavers, none of us -- save, perhaps, those whose ends come at their own hands or at the state's -- knows the day or hour of our personal extinction events. The difference is that we know it will come.

This is both a shadow and an advantage. We can live each day in fear that it will be our last, and so not begin anything anew, or live so that if any day were our last, we would have begun something to last beyond ourselves.

My father was fond of a quote attributed to Martin Luther. As he and others have told it, someone asked Luther, "What would you do if you knew the world was going to end tomorrow?"

Luther's reply: "I would plant a tree."

I don't know if I could do that. But I do know that each of us has a chance to do something good and lasting each day. That means me, yeah -- so that if Yellowstone pops tomorrow, I can combine a sense of accomplishment with my futile screaming and running.

Here ends the pontification. Here follows tonight's story:

Sabine Baring-Gould, "H.P."

Cup II: Lovely, blue-sunny day for Jayhawks and dinosaurs

Tea: Pu-er Poe/Jasmine blend

Time: Midmorning

Music: Bill Withers, "Lovely Day"; Jayhawks, "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me"; Adrian Belew, "Big Blue Sun"

It's a bit of hopeful thinking, perhaps, this whole loveliness thing. It's supposed to be 90 out today, and I am not in favor of this. Summer is all right after dark, but I still think of it as a bad opening act for fall.

But ... how can you listen to "Lovely Day" and not start nodding your head? Follow that up with "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," and the prospect of a sunny day doesn't seem so bad after all. Complete the trifecta with Belew's Beatlesque ditty (even if my copy plays at a crummy 96 bps), add caffeine, and voila! Instant happiness, or at the very least a big plate of cheerful bemusement with a side of motivation.

It's also hard to remain blah when drinking the daily cuppa from a mug with a picture of a T-Rex skull on it. It's from the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Never been, but I'm going to NYC for the first time this fall for a series of writing classes and workshops. So, time permitting, I'll get to go.

In the meantime, here and here and here are pictures of other impressive dinosaurs.

Yeah, they're all meat-eaters (or fish-eaters, in one case). Face it, carnivores rock. When was the last time you saw a kid pretending to be a placid herbivore?

OK, maybe one of these. Because big horns are pretty cool, too.