The sea was so calm on Friday morning - it was a pale grey blue like the sky and so still. I sat out on the balcony for a while after we got back from our hospital trip, and managed to get some rays on my poor old skin. I feel there is a Haiku in that stillness, but I can't get at it. No doubt the great Matsuo Basho could have.
We did not see the Northern Lights, but many in the UK did - due, apparently, to a violent sunstorm. What a beautiful awe-inspiring universe we float in! How often do we stop and thank our Creator Jehovah for the beauty he has made for us?
If we have swallowed down the theory of Evolution, which the world is determined we shall, then I guess the answer, very sadly, is "not at all"...
The moths are returning in their droves now - see the above, a Figure of Eighty. Amazing name - and one that requires a small verse. So here goes:
Figure of Eightynice to see you matey
but keep your eyes
open for magpies!
Energised - which is to say I found a tiny morsel of energy - by the C.O. visit, I actually got to the field service group on Saturday morning, and did a difficult call. It's difficult in the sense that the driving and parking is difficult, and my confidence is going. And I am no good at talking to people.
I did nothing in the afternoon, apart from finish my studying for the Sunday meeting, and make Himself's sandwiches. And I did provide us with supper, which was no great feat of cheffery being our usual veggie soup followed by yoghurt.
Us FANTASTIC authors have been toeing and froeing on Zoom and email all trying to find ways to up our book sales.
Here is the Fantastic Books website if you would like to visit it:
https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/about-us/the-fantastic-team
And Milton D, a facebook friend, has asked me for a copy of Umbrellas, as he has read and liked my previous books. I have one copy left, and one out on loan to Tony which should be coming back to me, so I hope to get that done.
It is always encouraging, when someone likes what you have written enough to want to read more. And I too have to remind myself to thank the Creator of language, of the human brain, of the imagination, as it is so satisfying to create something with words. It is a lovely gift.
I don't see why Evolution & Design can't coincide
ReplyDeleteHi Paul, Yes, I do know some people believe that God created through evolution. But here is the thing, if he did, doesn't that mean He made nature "red in tooth and claw"?
ReplyDeleteAnd that was always a problem for me. If God is both good and almighty as I was taught at my convent school, why did he make nature red in tooth and claw?
Yet the very first chapter of Genesis tells us us that he did not. It ends this way:
"Then God said: “Here I have given to you every seed-bearing plant that is on the entire earth and every tree with seed-bearing fruit. Let them serve as food for you. And to every wild animal of the earth and to every flying creature of the heavens and to everything moving on the earth in which there is life,* I have given all green vegetation for food.” And it was so.
After that God saw everything he had made, and look! it was very good...."
This was not a world full of the hunters and the hunted. It was very good. It was perfect. And following on from that, doesn't the Bible promise us that the peace and harmony of Eden will be restored, earthwide?
I am not sure how that can be reconciled with the theory of evolution.
And there is the matter of why Jesus came to earth, if we simply evolved...
And down the ages haven't poets lamented the shortness of our lives, the inevitability of our deaths? Have you read Larkin's Aubade?
If you have, what do you think, in the context of evolution/creation?
I like a lot of Larkin's poems (especially Whitsun Weddings) but I hate that poem
ReplyDeleteHi Anon - yes, a lot of people do. Maybe it is too bleak? Larkin felt a horror at the fact he was born dying, was going to die, all his life. It is something that most us, I guess, try to push to the back of our mind. And for sure, if we did evolve, what is the problem? But, if we were made to live forever on this lovely earth, as the first chapters of Genesis tells us, then isn't Larkin's poem understandable? We are living in a tragedy and he was never able to forget it.
ReplyDeleteBut the first chapters of Genesis assure us we are not abandoned to this. In fact the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation makes that assurance. Our loving Creator, Jehovah is offering each one of us back the life and perfection that our first parents lost.
I hope that Jehovah will wake the poet from the dreamless sleep of death when the time comes and that he will find himself alive in the restored earthly paradise - with the prospect of living on this lovely planet forever.
Do we, the damaged and dying children of disobedient Adam, even know what it is to be fully alive - or how wonderful it will be to be to have "the glorious freedom of the children of God"?