The Sun up close

// October 7th, 2008 // No Comments » // Beauty, Nature

So this big campfire just appeared one day millions of years ago?

Read more about this here.

Stars - Something Constant

// July 9th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Daily Life, Nature

It’s been awhile since I’ve participated in Randy’s Watercooler Wednesday. This week we’re talking about nature. I’m always struck by the night sky. Especially on a clear night when I’m away from city light pollution. I’ve just moved to the country where my neighbors include a couple of horses, a few goats, and some mules. And did I mention ticks and snakes.

So the night sky is easily viewed from really anywhere on my property. It’s pretty big, this thing called space. There is no end as far as my eye can tell. It appears to be still, yet this picture above (not taken by me) shows the motion paths the stars take relative to our rotating planet. I look at the unchanging picture of the man on the moon. He’s been around since I was born. I saw the big dipper last night and just for fun used the two stars at the end of it to point to the north star like I did when I was younger. Still works. I looked for the milky way, but got caught up in the immensity of it to see it. Once in my Navy days, our submarine was cruising surfaced inside the great barrier reef off the east coast of Australia. For those that have been south of the equator, the solar system and constellations are completely different. I spent several hours during the overnights in the conning tower enjoying the stars in the completely pollution free atmosphere that the ocean provides. Amazing.

So here I am going about my day to day and this mass of rock, dust, and debris is out there just like it’s always been. Yeah, things have changed, somewhat imperceptible to me. Shifting and moving and such. In his research for evidence to disprove that God had anything to do with the design of everything, former atheist Lee Strobel actually found out the opposite to be true which he wrote about in The Case for a Creator. The design of planetary orbits, distance and position of the moon to the earth, rotations of the earth and its position relative to everything else, has to be perfectly designed or life couldn’t exist on earth. nothing… nada….

Just like the Creator, stars are always there, accessible to the unaided eye, still useful for navigation, and with plenty of stories to tell if we’d only open our eyes.