Nature

It’s All About the Light

 Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.” John 8:12
Taking great pictures is all about the light. Finding it, chasing it, capturing it. And not just any light either, the right light. I am finding with my photos that either I don’t have enough light or I have too much. Once in a while I get it right on the money, and at this point it is a fluke when I do because I don’t know what I am doing…..yet. Right now I am trying to figure out how to get just the right amount of light in pictures I take at sunset, so they don’t look washed out. 
Jesus talked a lot about light. In fact, He was the light. When we find Him we find everything. We don’t have to chase Him, because He already made the first move. He died so that we could find it, find Him. The Bible says in John 1:4: 
 “In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
I am so glad I don’t have to run all over the place to find Him. He is right here with me at all times……..When life comes crashing in, I can go to a quiet place and find Him. And when I can’t get to that quiet place, I feel the stillness of His Spirit in my soul. I carry Him around and He allows it, wants it.
That blows my mind.
And He leads me places…….Sometimes He leads me walking. The other day while I was mulling over everything in my photo book, trying to make sense of it all and get my brain to work, I went out for a short walk around the park. I sensed Him saying, “See what you would have missed if you hadn’t come out here?”
Taking a walk is like letting the light in…….but only if you open your eyes to what He wants to show you. I confess, sometimes I have walked and been so upset I haven’t seen a thing.
But I don’t like walks like that, I want the other kind.
Peace in Him, Lori
photo courtesy of public domain pictures

Interesting Bible Facts

Halleluiah! I have just gotten to the point in Job where God finally speaks, right after Elihu “defends” God, as if He needed any defending…..

“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me, if you know so much.Who determined its dimensions and stretched out the surveying line? What supports its foundations, and who laid its cornerstone as the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” GOD

God uses a little sarcasm here, I love it!

Here are a few interesting facts I found…..


At a time when it was believed that the earth sat on a large animal or a giant (1500 B.C.), the Bible spoke of the earth’s free float in space: “He…hangs the earth upon nothing” (Job 26:7)

God told Job in 1500 B.C.: “Can you send lightnings, that they may go, and say to you, Here we are?” (Job 38:35). The Bible here is making what appears to be a scientifically ludicrous statement—that light can be sent, and then manifest itself in speech. But did you know that radio waves travel at the speed of light? This is why you can have instantaneous wireless communication with someone on the other side of the earth. Science didn’t discover this until 1864 when “British scientist James Clerk Maxwell suggested that electricity and light waves were two forms of the same thing” (Modern Century Illustrated Encyclopedia).
Science has discovered that stars emit radio waves, which are received on earth as a high pitch. God mentioned this in Job 38:7: “When the morning stars sang together…”

Medical science has only recently discovered that blood-clotting in a newborn reaches its peak on the eighth day, then drops. The Bible consistently says that a baby must be circumcised on the eighth day.

And here are two very strange facts about two events that have nothing to do with the Bible, but that I can count on happening as surely as I breathe….

Event #1:

I will invariably look at the clock at the precise same time every morning when I get ready for work: 4:28
This happens so often I am really starting to worry about the significance of the number. I always think the same disgruntled thought…..”How did it get to be that time already…..?”

Event #2

My feet (and everthing else) gets so warm at 2:00 AM that I have to throw socks and covers across the room. This is no mystery to most women of my age. The cats are no longer surprised by this……they stir briefly in hopes that in my confusion and distressed state that I will feed them early, and then go back to sleep.

I wake up about 1 hour later, cold.

Have a blessed and wonderful day, everyone!

A Sparrow Story

Paul Harvey relates a modern parable about a religious skeptic who worked as a farmer:

One raw winter night the man heard an irregular thumping sound against the kitchen storm door. He went to a window and watched as tiny, shivering sparrows, attracted to the evident warmth inside, beat in vain against the glass.

Touched, the farmer bundled up and trudged through fresh snow to open the barn door for the struggling birds. He turned on the lights and tossed some hay in the corner. But the sparrows, which had scattered in all directions when he emerged from the house, hid in the darkness, afraid.

The man tried various tactics to get them into the barn. He laid down a trail of Saltine cracker crumbs to direct them. He tried circling behind the birds to drive them to the barn. Nothing worked. He, a huge, alien creature, had terrified them; the birds couldn’t comprehend that he actually desired to help. The farmer withdrew to his house and watched the doomed sparrows through a window.

As he stared, a thought hit him like lightning from a clear blue sky: If only I could become a bird – one of them – just for a moment. Then I wouldn’t frighten them so. I could show them the way to warmth and safety.

At the same moment, another thought dawned on him. He grasped the reason Jesus was born.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

Finding God in the Landscape

Man’s heart away from nature becomes hard. ~Standing Bear
“Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths, lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars, wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds…..” Psalm 148:7-10
Last evening I went for a walk, I just had to get out…..see a bit of the mountain silhouette against the sky. The Lord originally placed us in a garden, I believe we were meant to gaze on vistas, sit beside still waters. I think when we forget our place in the landscape we go a little bit crazy. We wonder why we get so angry at little things, like when something gets stuck on a clothes hanger and we break the hanger trying to remove it.
That is always a clue to me that I need to go out and get back in touch with a bit of nature……remember my place in it, remember how big God is and how constant. I just get a bit lost sometimes. It strikes me again that the life that most of us are living is unnatural, I really don’t think we were meant for all this chaos.
Our world today is filled with noise, movement, activity and stress. Sometimes it just all sneaks up on us,  
like it snuck up on me last night. I saw the cars whizzing by the freeway between the houses, but beyond that was the mountain……
Nature is the compass that God uses to set me right. Sometimes it doesn’t even take a very big dose. I think when we forget to notice nature, we forget to notice God.

photos from public domain pictures

The ways God speaks……

….”But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.” Psalm 73:28

I love this verse, because David is not speaking about God, but actually to God……God’s nearness is something we can actually experience. The book of James says, “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” Imagine, a God we can actually have a personal experience of nearness to. The beauty of how God speaks to us is revealed in the many different ways He speaks to us as individuals.

The personal ways………

I have written before about the robin appearing at dawn on the awful day after my husband died, and the snow white dove appearing on my parents window sill as they were praying.

I have been lamenting the loss of my little cactus wren. When the cactus came down, “wrenny” flew the coop. Cactus wrens are very industrious and fun to watch. They are always busy, always working. I would see him hopping up and down the sidewalk, collecting nest material, finding food.

They have a very interesting call and I have missed seeing him perched on top of the Saquaro. Usually I wake with the mourning doves, their soft cooing has become my morning “collect.” I have grown very used to the sound of them accompanying my prayer. Yesterday I had a different visitor. He was perched right above my neighbors door and sang there non-stop for about 30 minutes. I have no idea what kind of bird he was, but he was there, singing God’s praises to me loud and clear.

I heard him this morning also, a good distance away.

But yesterday he was there for me, and so was He, in the lowly form of a little bird.

God speaks, we only need to have hearts and ears to hear.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” James 1:17

In your time of worship and reflection today, please take a moment to pray for the people of Japan……

God’s early light….

I do love Your dawn Lord,
I feel as if I am partaking in somekind of miracle…..
something just between You and me.
And the birds.
There is something about when the first light of pink
touches the sky, earth’s first waking.
Something in me grieves when I miss it,
when I am somewhere I can’t see it.
It’s like I’ve missed something important,
like a miracle.
Today I heard the first mourning dove,
which was answered by another close by.
Maybe that is why I feel a kinship
with the birds, they wake up singing.
They know it’s a miracle too.
Lord, I thank you because everyday
is resurrection day after all.
The earth turns, wakes.
And it will not happen just this way
again….

Taken from my iphone, Lodi, California…..

"Thar’s gold in them thar hills…."

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—

where does my help come from?
My help comes from the LORD,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the LORD will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Psalm 121

I get to have this view every evening when I come home, the beautiful and mysterious Superstition Mountains. Their presence comforts me somehow, they are so strong, so steadfast, so solid. I always think of this Psalm when I gaze up at its beauty, especially when the last rays of the sun turn it a deep magenta.

Somewhere up there, the legend says, the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine is hidden. It was named after German Immigrant Jacob Waltz, and said to be the most famous lost mine in the U.S. Many have looked for the mine since the late 1800’s and so far it has never been found.
Moses found treasure one day on a mountain. He didn’t find gold, but something much better, he found God. When I look at these mountains I always think of Moses coming down with those tablets, his face glowing like the sun…..

I can always find God on the mountain.

One particular evening when the sun was doing its magenta magic, I was standing in our community clubhouse. I approached the door because from there you get an unblocked view of the mountain range. Standing in the doorway was a sweet elderly lady who is very sick. She was going home early because she didn’t feel well that night. She paused at the door way, looked up and caught her breath at the magnificent view and said in a hushed voice, “I think God lives up there.”

I said, “Yes, I think He does too!”

Spring has sprung……NOT!

See! The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves is heard in our land.
The fig tree forms its early fruit;
the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Song of Solomon 2 11-13
Well, not quite yet. The weather report called for a chance of snow in San Francisco last night! About 50 insomniacs gathered in the Twin Peaks area around midnight, but no snow! However, right now it is only 48 degrees in Mesa, Arizona which is highly unusual! I have had my heater on more than I ever have this year. I confess I have enjoyed it. It has felt a bit more like winter.
I remember growing up in the farmland and orchards of the San Joaquin valley of California; I used to love it when all the cherries and almonds would blossom. After months of fog, rain and dampness, the sun would shine forth in brilliance and infuse people with false hope. Everyone would go out and start working in their yards, looking for rakes and garden tools long buried under Novembers mulchy leaves. We would glory in it, our faces upturned toward the sun……
Mom and I would go downtown to JC Penney and shop for my Easter dress, matching patent leather shoes of course, and the louder the better. Easter Sunday could not come fast enough. We would eagerly watch the weather the week before, hoping and praying for sun. Many times we would wake to ferocious biting winds with enough force to blow a hat clear into the next town, or a cold pelting rain. We would dash from the car to the church, fighting vociferously with inside out umbrellas. All the blossoms would be blown off the fruit trees.
Every now and again it would happen though…..we would get that perfect day.
For now though, I am enjoying the nice change. I am sorry for all of you dealing with more snow and ice and all the problems that brings, but when our summer starts and I walk outside at 5:00 AM and it is already oppressively hot, I will remember this wonderful winter!
I know that Spring will come, and on its heels the beginning of a long hot Summer, but that is as it should be. Even that will bring it’s own rewards. The seasons are God’s way of reassuring us that life does go on. It is reliable, this marking of time, this rhythm.
God’s rhythm. And it is very good.
And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years……Genesis 1:14
photos taken from publicdomainpictures.net

Look to the animals…….

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. Job 12:7-10
In my devotional today I read of the remarkable characteristics of the bombadier beetle. This African insect shoots two common materials, hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone from two storage tanks in it’s back. Apart, these substances are harmless, but together they are lethal. One shot of this toxic blend blinds the predator of this insect. A special nozzle inside the beetle mixes the chemicals, enabling it to bombard its foe at amazing speeds.
When I think of the creatures that surround me in this desert, I am equally amazed. I took the above shot on a morning walk. This female dove sitting on her nest, totally protected by the thorns on this Saquaro cactus. She stared at me from her safe vantage point as to rest in the knowledge of her protection….
I am totally convinced that if a person really studies just one aspect of creation, one aspect of our own bodies, we would throw away all thoughts of evolution forever. Instead this theory, this lie, is taught as fact in just about every classroom. How does this happen? It takes much more faith to believe in evolution than God in my opinion. The evidence of a loving Creator is overwhelming to me when I study nature.
I remember being taught evolution back in the sixties but I didn’t pay much attention to it, I chose to believe what I was taught in church and the Bible, and my parents. To me it made much more sense.
What do you think? Is belief in evolution compatible with Scripture? I know some Christians believe that God used evolution as His method of creation. Does it matter how it came about anyway?
Information on the bombadier beetle was supplied by Dave Egner, Our Daily Bread devotional
koala photo from Google images

Wish you were here!

As for God, his way is perfect:
The LORD’s word is flawless;
he shields all who take refuge in him.
For who is God besides the LORD?
And who is the Rock except our God?
It is God who arms me with strength
and keeps my way secure.
He makes my feet like the feet of a deer;
he causes me to stand on the heights. Psalm 18:30-33

Sorry everyone! I had my post all done this morning and poof! It was gone and no getting it back……..I had a wonderful post all ready about worry and how I do too much of it……but it wasn’t meant to be and now you came for inspiration and all you get is this picture of me on Monday’s hike! The weather here in Arizona is a bit of heaven right now. It makes up for the months of living like you are inside a pizza oven in summer. I wish you all could have this weather…….72 and sunny right now.

Well, the inspiration of Psalm 18 is more than enough to set you in those high secure places….Blessings and peace from the desert.

I was happy to see the bench empty…..

all pics from iphone