Right now, as I write this, I have been enjoying the friendly croaking of frogs nearby, who appear to be enjoying some sort of damp and cozy space. Since my youth I have associated the croaking of frogs to be among the signs of a pleasant evening. Yet, as might be imagined, frogs have a far larger context when it comes to friendly associations than may ordinarily be the case with most people. Among the more fascinating aspects of meme culture, at least to me, is the fact that there is a genuine community of people who fondly wish each other well through the communication of their fondness of shared templates of memes. If most of the conversation about this has often been negative, as such thinkpieces often are when looking at phenomena to which people are outside, for those on the inside, there is a genuine sense of fondness for the enjoyment of the simple life of friendship, food, and affection.

Last night, I was watching a movie with frens underneath a gorgeous sky being warmed by a toasty fire, and while we were in the midst of watching the movie, someone pointed up towards the sky, and when we looked at the sky we saw bright lights, including a larger light breaking into smaller segments that burned in line segments briefly before going out. Such a sight prompted us to wonder if we were watching unusually linear meteor showers or a large satellite breaking up into smaller pieces in the atmosphere and burning up as they disintegrated. It can be enjoyable not only to spend time with friends but to share common experiences with them, such that one can say, remember that one time when we saw _________ in the sky while we were camping at _______?

One of the more striking differences between our society and biblical society is the different view of dogs. In the Bible, pariah dogs are looked upon in a consistently negative fashion. Even in those situations, as in the story of Lazarus and the rich man, when the dogs are doing something good, like trying to comfort a sick beggar, they give the image of spreading disease like vermin. Gentiles were considered to be dogs by Jews–we can see this in the Gospels, for example–and at times this became the subject of interesting conversation about the subtleties of the meaning of dog. That said, among the campers there were a great many people who brought their dogs with them, and it was interesting to see the interaction between the various dogs, which demonstrated that some of the dogs were unable to remember that they had befriended dogs only a few hours before to bark and chase after them menacingly. I wonder why this was the case.