Some of my favorite verses in the Bible are found in Hebrews 1:1-4 [link]. And as a person interested in Science the word radiance [link] continues to catch my attention every time I read it. Another word for radiance is effulgence [link] which simmers with outcasting of energy in the very pronunciation of the word. We don’t see material; we see light. So we see radiation from the sun, not the sun. As John 1:18 [link] tells us we don’t see God the Father but God the Son. The picture is of Christ shining forth the glory of God which we would not see without His intervention. There are two sides to God’s glory- one harsh and one kind-both equally true. The more I thought about it the more it grew in my mind until I wrote a poem called “Radiance”. You can read that poem by clicking on Radiance
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“Ooooh, layers!” exclaims the donkey to the ogre. But he still didn’t understand and I’m not talking par-fey or onions but polystrate fossils. It’s neither a personality thing nor a cause of hardening of the arteries. I guess you’ll just have to read by clicking on God’s Gift to Creationists (6th in a series) to see what creationists were so happy about when it happened.
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Day before yesterday I went with my two youngest sons and a friend of theirs to the waterfall pictured below. I was about 100 degrees F in the lowlands that day. The rock was so hot that it burned dry feet. The water was low from drought and not as cool as usual from being low and from a week of high temperatures. (I hope you’ve already figured out that this picture comes from an entirely different time when the creek was in fact nearly in flood condition.) But it was plenty cool enough, and clear. 
We saw more creek wildlife than one usually does. After sitting at water’s edge to eat a snack, I may have discovered why. Crawdads (crayfish for the rest of the country) were moving around. Usually they stay close to one eddy or rock, but they were moving across the large pool and over the cascade and through rapids. Why? mating season? Perhaps, but I considered a more immediate and likely reason. When it’s hot the water dissolves less oxygen, making it hard on these little gilled crustaceans. Perhaps they were looking for more oxygen rich water. Another evidence for this explanation was the large number of lethargic, upturned, and dead crawdads. Possibly there was a kill off from disease or pollution, but the later seems unlikely since the source water is the side of Grandfather Mtn. And too, the others seemed fine. The final evidence comes from the ones fairing well. On the cascade at almost exactly geometric center of the picture is a kettle (a pothole formed by the combination of continuously swirling, pounding water). This kettle is about 5′ x 3.5′ x 3′ deep. It is an exceptionally exciting experience to submerge into the kettle, underneath the foam and look up at the sunlit, white foam. The bottom is lined with rounded stones ranging from Foosball to tennis ball size. The rock carrying the water into the kettle overhangs the kettle by about a foot and allows one to come up for air in a small pocket underneath the falling water with just enough room to breath and not be seen by those outside the kettle. As my younger cohorts and myself took turns submerging into the kettle we began to see one then two then five crawdads moving around on the bottom, quite lively. The foam must provide a continuous supply of oxygen, aerating the water nonstop despite the high temperatures. Later Sam saw and caught a water snake that was about 16 to 18″ long. I ferried it across the large lower pool to show it to a mom and her 6 children. In conversation I learned that she had freshly returned from Poland and a missionary there. Later we saw a 2.5′ water snake of the same variety. Sam caught a small fish rolling down the cascade. Later still I talked to two college students who were former students of mine. As we sat in the shallow water at the edge of the upper pool a bright orange crawdad crawled close to the guy. I caught it and showed it around. I’d never seen an orange one before! Sam and Phil and Michael climbed part way up on the falls and jumped off numerous times. Sam wanted to climb to the top and jump off the falls. He watched me do it and followed. He did it five more times. I explored the bottom of the pools, watched the boys play and played with them and sat pondering the water, rock, trees, and sky. Clean foam entering the kettle, starkly blue summer skies (odd for here), sun heated basalt rock with with black and quartzite dikes running straight across, small fish and crawdads and water insect nymphs scurrying and clinging, transitions from dry land to water’s edge to submerged plants, boulders to silt, my body both hot in the sun and cool in the creek, and more arrested my attention with more force than usual. My Creator’s works can fascinate and inspire the spirit and mind for a thousand life times, how much more His person.
Posted in General | Tagged Outdoors | 3 Comments »
1. What is the difference between something incredible and something wonderful?
Matching.
___ 2. Evolution a. Wonderful
___ 3. Creation b. Incredible
. c. Both
See my discussion by clicking on Incredible or Wonderful (4th in a series)
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The evidence cries out, fully on display! On Display is a poem that I wrote about two years ago as my heart filled with the mind boggling array of how God represents Himself in nature.
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Everyone loves symmetry. As I was reminded as I am participating in a curriculum workshop at William and Mary College this week, “Physicists love symmetry”. Observers of beauty, whether of your beloved’s form or “peak flower” bloom or architecture or tree bole or interior decoration, love symmetry. Music and poetry have popular appeal when there is symmetry. Mathematician’s even do proofs (ugh!) to have symmetry (1≡1). You don’t have to be OCD to appreciate or seek or manage for symmetry. God has made you with a built in desire for it. When a musical chord is not resolved (all notes simple multiples that resonate rather than produce dissonance) you cringe because of the interference of the sound waves that is displeasing. The “off key” sound is purposeful to produce tension in your spirit but is resolved in good music (judgment call I know, but it is also the very argument of this post). God has even put symmetry into the seemingly asymmetrical. For example, leaves do not always appear symmetrical. But informed geometers know that deep within their structures are molecules attaching in symmetrical structures that build upon each other in what the mathematician calls a fractal (a repeating mathematical progression; clear example: the shape of a nautilus seashell). And the physicist loves the symmetry because it points to simplicity and structure, the evidence of truth and therefore of satisfaction to the physicist. So how about the most asymmetrical object or idea you can think of. Does it have a hidden symmetry we have yet to find or evidence of a degradation from its original or intended form? I suspect that if God is the author of it there is symmetry to be found. It matches His nature and points to Him.
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The answer to my questions about beauty is not subjective, a mere warm fuzzy reaction. Rather, the answer is a rising of our emotion and spirit to interact with the inspiring truth we behold about God. To understand better read my article by clicking on Beauty and Truth (3rd in a series)
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The hues, the colors, the trees and mountains, the vastness and unobstructed view.
This is where I see beauty! But why do I see beauty here or at all? Visit again for some views and musing on the purpose and satisfaction of beauty.
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Truth cannot be mixed because the result must always be less than truth.
Two contradictory ideas cannot both be true in that the truth of one means the falsehood of the other. Click on Contradictory Sycretism (2nd in a series) to learn more.
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What do the fish fossils really show? Evidence for catastrophism. Click on Something Fishy (5th in a series) to get a fuller answer.
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The creation/evolution conflict is not ultimately over who has the science but on the difference in belief systems.
From shortly after the time of Christ until present day many authors in Western Society have written about two great books of revelation, or knowledge about God. This idea is clearly stated by Raymond of Sabunde, “there are two books given to us by God, the one being the book of the whole collection of creatures or the book of nature, and the other being the book of sacred scripture” Theologia Naturalis (1436). Augustine explained the importance of the book of Nature in that “there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that? Why, heaven and earth shout to you: ‘God made me!’” (City of God 11:22).
This metaphor of the books flows quite naturally from the Bible. For example, in Psalm 19 the psalmist says, “The heavens are telling the glory of God and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech and night to night reveals knowledge” (Psalm 19:1-2). “The Commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes” (v.8). And the Apostle Paul in clarifying the role of nature says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” (Romans 1:20) Christians accept the books of Nature and Scripture and that they do not contradict one another as they reveal God and His works.
I have had people make statements to me that are very similar to the following: “I don’t accept what the Bible says; I only accept empirical data!” Or put another way, if I can’t see it and feel it I will not believe it. Or, “I only accept science, not religion.” One term for this viewpoint is naturalism, which is the view that all things can be explained in terms of natural phenomena. Are people who say these types of things accepting only one book of evidence or knowledge, the Book of Nature? I think not. To explain, let us consider the topic of origins (where we came from and how the universe began). Was there any man or woman there to observe the beginning? Can an experiment be done to test the origin of the universe?
Can an experiment be done to once again start the universe? Are any of these questions open to being proven wrong? The answers are no. And since the origin cannot be observed, tested, repeated, or falsified, it is beyond the realm of science. It is in fact based on presuppositions- assumptions, which cannot be demonstrated but are accepted before observation is made- which are also called beliefs. Naturalism and its offspring evolution are based on faith. Evolutionists accept the books of Nature and Naturalism as internally consistent evidence of Nature and Its progress.
The argument then is not between Religion and Science. Rather, Christianity and Naturalism, each with their own holy books, are battling over the interpretation of the book of Nature by using and misusing Science to try and convince each other of the truth of their holy books.
I hope to show in small part that one serves science and society far better and satisfies the soul far more than the other. This service and satisfaction will in turn render praise to the one whom it is due.
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Click on Marks of the Maker : A poem about urgings of heart and eye that He has passed this way.
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It’s a basic question, really, related to why people write books, tell stories, write songs, or talk at all. We were made to communicate because we are made in His image. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) Jesus wanted you to know about Him and that He is the communication of the Father for “no one has seen God at any time; the only begotten of God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” (John 1:18 ) Not only did He explain Him but He also had it written down so that we could refer back to it and reference it as I have done.
Not all of us have a book in us or perhaps we do but have not found the resources of time and money and encouragement to pull it off. But we want to communicate like our Creator and we want it to have some permanence and purpose and we want a reaction so we know that someone is listening. Even if the reaction is critical it’s better than silence because we know we were heard and the opportunity is there to clarify so that we aren’t misunderstood.
So I have decided that even though the book has a name, the poems are several in number, the songs will never be popular, the articles are written, the pictures are on file,
and the thoughts are regular in occurrence I am not likely to communicate quite to the extent I desire without putting it out there for many to see. I can reference this page when I do have a conversation that includes files herein and I can muse, though ever so poorly. In short, I can communicate. I hope that you will react to my occasional verbal outpourings and find some glory given to the beginning of all communication, Creator God and His Son, Jesus Christ.
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