{"id":10844,"date":"2017-10-31T00:16:13","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T07:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/?p=10844"},"modified":"2017-10-31T06:55:18","modified_gmt":"2017-10-31T13:55:18","slug":"martin-luther-bird-conservationist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/31\/martin-luther-bird-conservationist\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Luther, Bird Conservationist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-10845\" src=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screenshot-2017-10-30-11.19.42.png\" alt=\"Screenshot 2017-10-30 11.19.42\" width=\"341\" height=\"391\" srcset=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screenshot-2017-10-30-11.19.42.png 341w, http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Screenshot-2017-10-30-11.19.42-262x300.png 262w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 341px) 100vw, 341px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>On the five hundredth birthday of what one has come to think of as the start of the Reformation, a letter from the birds of Wittenberg to\u00a0Martin Luther:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>W<\/strong>e, the Thrushes, Blackbirds, Finches, Linnets, Goldfinches, and all other righteous and honorable Birds wishing to migrate over Wittenberg this autumn beg to inform you that as we have ourselves been credibly informed, a certain Wolfgang Seyberger, your servant,\u00a0 has undertaken to purchase several old worn-out nets at\u00a0considerable expense, in his great hatred and anger at us, in order to create a\u00a0finch trap, to\u00a0deprive not only our dear friends the Finches but all of us of our God-given freedom to fly through the air and to collect seeds from the ground, and that he is plotting against our lives, though we have caused him no harm and done nothing to merit such severe and ill-considered actions\u00a0on his part.<\/p>\n<p><strong>B<\/strong>ecause all of that is, as you yourself can imagine,\u00a0poses a great and dangerous burden to us poor free Birds, who have neither houses nor barns and no possessions, our humble and amiable plea to you is that you will discourage your servant from such presumptuous actions, and if that is not possible,\u00a0then urge him to spread grain on the ground for us in the evening and then to stay away from the trap before eight in the morning, so that we can\u00a0elude him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>I<\/strong>f he refuses, then we shall pray to our Lord God that his traps capture nothing but flies, midges, and slugs, and that at night he is so plagued by mice, fleas, lice, and bedbugs that he forgets us entirely and does not deprive us of freedom and flight.<\/p>\n<p><strong>W<\/strong>hy does he not direct his wrath and efforts against Sparrows, Swallows, Magpies, Jackdaws, Crows, Mice, and Rats, which do harm you by stealing and robbing wheat, oats, barley, and so on from the buildings? We do not do this, but merely seek tiny crumbs and single\u00a0dropped seeds. We\u00a0submit our case\u00a0to all righteousness and reason to determine whether it is not unjust that we are so severely persecuted by him. We hope to God that as so many of our brothers and friends have escaped him this fall that we too can fly through\u00a0his lax and rotting nets that we\u00a0saw yesterday.<\/p>\n<p><strong>G<\/strong>iven this day at our sky seat in the trees and under our common seal of feathers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Suppose Luther showed this letter to Seyberger?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the five hundredth birthday of what one has come to think of as the start of the Reformation, a letter from the birds of Wittenberg to\u00a0Martin Luther: We, the Thrushes, Blackbirds, Finches, Linnets, Goldfinches, and all other righteous and honorable Birds wishing to migrate over Wittenberg this autumn beg to inform you that as &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/31\/martin-luther-bird-conservationist\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Martin Luther, Bird Conservationist&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10844"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10846,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10844\/revisions\/10846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}