Usually my nighttime dreams are visual, and wisp away within minutes of my awakening. Not this one. Pinky swear, I awoke reciting the last line of this dream.

It was an old speech I memorized in high school for extra credit. Even if you did, too, will you pretend you’ve never seen it before? Consider it in today’s context?

And if you’d like to talk about it, do drop me a note.

It goes like this:

“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

We are met on a great battlefield of that war.

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.

The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—

that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—

that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain;

that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom;

and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Abraham Lincoln

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

November 16, 1863

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On another front, my chat with Forrest Brown went live recently on Stories for Earth, a podcast devoted to narratives offering strength and resilience in fighting the climate crisis. Though Sugar Birds is regularly identified as a nature novel, I don’t consider it “cli-fi” (climate fiction). I wondered how—and if—the book would intersect with works and ideologies of eco-fiction.

Turns out that we found quite a bit to talk about. Listen on any of the following links:

Stories for Earth, with Forrest Brown

• Web page: https://storiesforearth.com/2021/11/16/interview-cheryl-grey-bostrom-author-of-sugar-birds/
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/46zHSlWiDthmp7L4Xu4Tew?si=e7b4f26ce56f474b
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/interview-cheryl-grey-bostrom-author-of-sugar-birds/id1478061144?i=1000542091621

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And, of course, pics for you:

Pennants.

“His banner over me is love.”

—Song of Solomon 2:4

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Morning tune.

“You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”

—Isaiah 55:12

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Together.

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

—Matthew 18:20

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Thanks for dropping by, friends. I always welcome your comments or emails . . . and will reply!

Watching Nature, Seeing Life: Through His Creation, God Speaks.

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💡 Stocking Stuffer idea: Sugar Birds!