Scripture: Psalm 100

1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
2 Serve the Lord with gladness!
    Come into his presence with singing!
3 Know that the Lord, he is God!  
    It is he who made us, and we are his;  
    we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,  
    and his courts with praise!  
    Give thanks to him; bless his name!
5 For the Lord is good;  
    his steadfast love endures forever,  
    and his faithfulness to all generations.

Poetry: All Things Beautiful by Cecil Alexander

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.

The purple-headed mountain,
The river running by,
The sunset and the morning,
That brightens up the sky;

The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
He made them every one;

The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows for our play,
The rushes by the water,
To gather every day;

He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.

Hymn: Oh, Love, How Deep

Oh, love, how deep, how broad, how high,
Beyond all thought and fantasy,
That God, the son of God, should take
Our mortal form for mortal’s sake!

He sent no angel to our race,
Of higher or of lower place,
But wore the robe of human frame,
And to this world himself he came.

For us baptized, for us he bore
His holy fast and hungered sore;
For us temptation sharp he knew;
For us the tempter over threw.

For us he prayed; for us he taught;
For us his daily works he wrought,
By words and signs and actions thus
Still seeking not himself but us.

For us by wickedness betrayed,
For us, in crown of thorns arrayed,
He bore the shameful cross and death;
For us he gave his dying breath.

For us he rose from death again;
For us he went on high to reign;
For us he sent his Spirit here
To guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.

All glory to our Lord and God
For love so deep, so high, so broad;
The Trinity whom we adore
Forever and forevermore.

Attr: Thomas a Kempis
Tune: Deo Gracias
1^st. Published in: 15^th cent.

Prehistoric Nature Study and the Spider Pavillion

This week we ventured to downtown Los Angeles to the Natural History Museum. The NHM is known for it's magnificent dinosaur skeletons, or at least that's what I remember about it from when I was a kid.

But they also have an amazing insect exhibit and in the Fall they transform their Butterfly Pavilion into a Spider Pavilion.  The spider that was most visible in the pavilion was the Golden Silk Orb-Weaver (agriope aurantiia), which is also known as the Common Garden Spider and the Black and Yellow Agriope.  It turns out that this spider matures in the Fall, which explains why they were so prevalent.  According to the Insects of the Los Angeles Basin (a field guide I picked up at the museum), "this spider and other orb weavers are sometimes called 'writing spiders' because of the appearance of the stabilmentum [web decoration], which seems to some imaginative people to contain letters of the alphabet."

This spider also produces silk that is stronger than steel or Kevlar and was used historically in textiles in Madagascar.  According to Wired Science, "the French missionary Jacob Paul Camboué . . .  worked with spiders in Madagascar during the 1880s and 1890s. Camboué built a small, hand-driven machine to extract silk from up to 24 spiders at once, without harming them." This was the inspiration for textile expert Simon Peers to attempt to make a rare textile from spider silk. 

 Here's a video of the project:

It's amazing what these creatures can produce.