Spring Poetry

First a howling blizzard woke us,
Then the rain came down to soak us,
And now before the eye can focus -
Crocus.
~Lilja Rogers


Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"


So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD
His going forth is as certain as the dawn;
And He will come to us like the rain,
Like the spring rain watering the earth.
Hosea 6:3

Happy Pi Day

There is no compulsory education in Singapore, but their
school attendance is 98% and their aggregate literacy shames
America’s. Prior to compulsory education in America, 100
million sets of Noah Webster’s Speller were sold in the years
after 1783 (this was also a time when scholarships for the
poor were pervasive), and the six-volume Eclectic Readers by
W.H. McGuffey sold 120 million sets during the decades after
1836. These are astonishing numbers given the US population
during that era. Non-compulsory education once gave our
nation its highest literacy rates, as documented not only by
Alexis de Tocqueville, but also by the study Thomas Jefferson
commissioned DuPont to conduct in 1800, which showed
national literacy standing at 99.7% (compared to today’s 80%
figure for high school graduates, which doesn’t even include
the one million dropouts produced every year).

~ Martin G. Selbrede

Snow - a woods in grayscale

Georgia has a wonderful snow today, and by that, I mean that we had snow that left the woods looking full of wonder.

I have seen a lot of snow over the years. Today's snow was spectacular. My son who has lived all his life in the South does not understand. Oh, he is enthralled by it, but he assumes that this is commonplace in the north. It is not.

Today's snow was relatively warm—for snow, and had large flakes. It fell without wind. We have a 10# fishing line strung between two trees and the snow stacked a half-inch deep in it! On a twig with a 3/8 inch diameter, it stacked over an inch!

The sky was a pearl white. There were no shadows. It was as if the entire woods was lit with a photographer's reflective umbrella.

Spellbound.

Groundhog Day

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. ~Maori Proverb

...to be continued.

1s¹

Someone has blown up an atom.

Oh, not in a bomb kind of way. They decided to make a web page model and blow up an electon to the size of a single pixel.

http://www.phrenopolis.com/perspective/atom/#electron

A scroll bar slide runs along the bottom. It is easy to miss because it almost looks empty, but if you use it, you can take a virtual journey from a hydrogen proton out to its encircling electron. As the disclaimer warns, the scenery along the way is pretty bleak. Even once you are there, there isn't much to see. It's nothing that is important. I mean, it's nothing that is important.

Susan's Bear

Susan's Bears is a story by Mildred Lawrence. It was in the first real storybook that I ever remember reading all by myself, The Tall Book of Makebelieve.

The book belonged to my big sister, who happens to be a Susan herself. Nearly all my childhood favorites came from that one book— Eugene Field's Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, Sandberg's Village of Cream Puffs, and the artwork for Stevenson's The Land of Counterpane that turned a bed quilt into a magical battlefield.

But 'Susan's Bears' was about finding courage to meet the fears of the dark, for a family of bears lived behind the bedroom door at her aunt's house. The bears began leaving Susan letters which helped her to overcome her fears until at last, she found a real teddy bear behind the door. All fear was gone.

This Christmas we decorated an old pot-bellied bear with a jaunty velvet and fur Santa cap. It sat on a little antique stool tucked behind the curve of the couch. The only viewpoint from which the bear could be clearly seen was at the end of the hallway.

Every time I exited the hall, I'd see it sitting there half hidden. I came to regard it as Susan's bear. Now it is time to pack up the Christmas gear for another year, but I don't think this Teddy will go back in the attic. I will find it a scarf and let it keep sitting there because I think it keeps the spirit of Christmas Past very well.

Perhaps next month he will see his shadow.

Time

New Year's Day naturally lends itself to the topic of Time. I was reviewing my old notebooks where I outline and keep notes for articles that I may wish to write someday. I was not looking for a topic to blog about. However, that is what seems to have providentially occurred. Because this particular set of notes was written as the background for a potential Bible study, that may overshadow the tenor of this blog. But I promise, I'll try really hard not to sound too religious, even though there will be quotations from scripture.

And in that vein:
He made known to us the mystery of His will with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times… Ephesians 1:9, 10a

First, understand thet some adverb and prepositional phrases were omitted because, the title of this blog not withstanding, they would lead to a rabbit trail that I don't wish to follow at the moment. Rather, I'd like to emphasize "an administration suitable to the fullness of the times…" You are welcome to go look it up on your own if you are worried that I'm taking something out of context. Far be it from me to stop anyone from chasing down a bunny trail! But the main point for now is that Time is under jurisdiction of God the Father. In fact, one of the names for Him is Ancient of Days.

...thrones were set up,
And the Ancient of Days took His seat;
His vesture was like white snow
And the hair of His head like pure wool
His throne was ablaze with flames
~from Daniel 7

My notes continue for several pages, giving examples of "proper time" for seeding and harvest, the appearing of Christ, the testimony, the gentile age, for hope to be manifested, for taking possession of the kingdom, and so forth—all laying a foundation to show that set times are integral in God's plans.

And then there was this:
...He will … wear down the saints of the Highest One, and he will intend to make alterations in times… ~from Daniel 7:25

The antichrist will attempt to change God's timing. That has to be diabolical.

Imagine that, as Creator of the Universe you had certain asteroids lined up on precisely calculated trajectories so that you could pull off the fulfillment of the revelation that you'd leaked to John so that it will look like a huge mountain, all ablaze, being thrown into the sea. You've balanced the stresses along the fault lines so that your earthquakes will occur exactly when it's time to return. You've structured the elements of the atmosphere to coalesce into hailstones at the particular instant that enemy armies will be pulling flanking maneuvers past Mount Megiddo into the Jezreel Valley. And here comes this immortal enemy hell-bent on altering the schedule.
Just who does the antichrist think he is anyway, God?

… oh, yeah. I guess he does.