George loved to stir-fry Steve’s faults. Every now and then he force-fed Steve a taste. Steve himself had a kettle of righteousness in which he boiled every embarrassing detail he could recall or invent from George’s past.
Although this provided some satisfaction for these two friends, it never satisfied them long enough to stop.
Since so far nothing major happened neither expected anything to wear down as a result of their mischief. When it did both knew the other side needed to apologize though neither knew how they could bring themselves to forgive should that happen.
Denise offers the word “wear” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
The top photo is a sunrise coming through silhouetted palm trees. The bottom is an afternoon storm coming in over the Atlantic Ocean.
The lighted path and the sunrise (though not shades of grey) provided contrast hopefully accentuating the darkness in the rest of the photo. These photos were taken some time ago.
Evening clouds over Miami Beach with a lighted path
If the eighteenth-century botanist, looking for the first time through the old idols of Linneaus’ fixed and timeless classification into the new perspective of biological evolution, felt a sense of liberation and of light, it can have been but a candle-flame compared with the first glimpse we now get of the familiar world and human history lying together, bathed in the light of the evolution of consciousness.
Owen Barfield’s literary estate associates him with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. When I was trying to understand Saving the Appearances in the 1970s as an undergraduate in a Catholic college I wrongly lumped him with theistic existentialists such as Gabriel Marcel or Martin Buber and social critics such as Jacques Ellul or Ivan Illich. As I saw it they were the good guys offering guidance. I recently read the book again to try to see what went wrong in my own thinking at that time.
Barfield has this to say about Jesus, “If we accept at all the claims made by Christ Jesus concerning his own mission, we must accept that he came to make possible in the course of time the transition of all men from original to final participation; and we shall regard the institution of the Eucharist as a preparation – a preparation (we shall not forget) which has so far only been operant for the sidereally paltry period of nineteen hundred years or so.” (pages 170-171)
As a philosopher with a captive audience he did not have to bother trying to convince his readers with much evidence, whether biblical, logical or empirical, for why we “must accept” his assertions. I wonder today if he had a clue what the mission of Jesus was. By “paltry period” I suspect he thought we still had millions, or even billions, of years of consciousness evolution before us. What I realize today is when one takes the ancient myths of evolution seriously, in spite of the evidence of entropy going against them, one begins dismissing or distorting the Creation, the Fall, the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus and the Last Days.
Why people find the myths of evolution believable, indeed why I used to believe them looking forward to some Age of Aquarius, is not clear to me. If one likes believing such things one might glibly talk about an evolution of this or that as Barfield does of consciousness. If one doesn’t, one could think of such beliefs as a centuries long buildup to the fulfillment of prophecy in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 where Paul predicted a rebellion preceding the day of the Lord.
Admittedly I did not understand Barfield as an undergraduate, but today I wonder just how much there was worth understanding. His stature as an authority made me think that reimagining his own beliefs was more important than reading the Bible. That helped lead me astray. I forgive him for that, knowing that I need forgiveness as well.
It’s holiness that makes us hush not happiness that runs away with pleasures leading us astray in nightmares while the waters rush.
With affirmations rich and plush we thank the Lord who made the sky, who made the earth and birds that fly and creatures on the land below and in the water. See! They show the glory of our God on high.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “hush” to be used in an A line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge and Eugenia offers “affirmations” for this week’s prompt. I was thinking of Jerry Bridges’ book, The Pursuit of Holiness.
With so many things that could go wrong but wouldn’t, Brian was worried. Survival depended on manna from heaven. Having no control over heaven he wondered, What if the manna stops?
It’s not that Brian didn’t like walking on water once he knew he wouldn’t sink. It was the actual stepping out of the boat that bothered him.
Regardless of these concerns, needless perhaps but afflicting Brian’s mind, there was no other way to the shelter.
Denise offers the word “shelter” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
These are photos of sand on a beach. I hope less detail motivates more interest.
There is a shell and markings where the ocean waves reached on the sand as the tide went out. I once saw a painting in a museum that was simply a canvas painted white. This sort of reminds me of that, but there is that shell.
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
Belief in millions or even billions of years of deep time, rather than thousands, rests on assumptions of uniformitarianism. These assumptions include asserting that no global catastrophes occurred in the past such as a high-energy global flood that would have accelerated change, that only low-energy processes built the mountains and carved out the canyons, and that currently measured rates of low-energy change were constant throughout time.
Assuming no global catastrophes and constant rates of change would allow these low-energy processes to be used like clocks extrapolating billions of years of deep time into the past. However, this extrapolation works just as well into the future. The rates of change coming from erosion and entropy give us a maximum age of how long current structures would survive. That means the age of the present structures cannot be older than the amount of time it would take to erode them away.
For example, if the entire fossil record would be eroded away in 10 or even 50 million years, the fossil record could not be older than that. It might be younger, but not older. If someone claimed that a fossil was over 100 million years old, the first question should be how did that fossil survive the effects of day-by-day, low-energy, uniformitarian erosion?
Although low-energy processes can effect a lot of change over millions of years they do not explain how the structures we see today, the mountains and canyons, got there in the first place. To explain them one needs high-energy catastrophes working faster than the low-energy erosion that would wash them all away.
Deep time uniformitarianism attempts to discredit Biblical events that explain why the earth is as it is and where it is going: Creation, Fall, Noah’s Flood, Babel, the Resurrection of Jesus and His Second Coming. When one begins to see that the present state of the earth confirms the view that it is young then a creation and global flood account as described in Genesis becomes plausible. When that becomes plausible the rest of the narrative does as well. When one realizes that all of this is more than plausible one’s whole life renews.
37 But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
It’s perseverance that we need with faithful focus, pure of heart, repenting any wayward part. We let the Holy Spirit lead with prayer the writings that we read. Avoiding tricks deceivers play we stay upon the narrow way that follows closely His own will thus finding that we’ve served until the coming of the final day.
Ronovan Hester offers the rhyme word “will” to be used in a D-line of a décima having rhyme pattern ABBAACCDDC for this week’s challenge.
George cut the lemon into halves. He squeezed the juice from each half into his water container. Then he cut the squeezed halves into quarters and ate them.
Distracted by the harmony of clouds and ocean during the morning’s sunrise, he almost forgot. He thanked God for lemons, even the most bitter ones. He thanked God for the one he received today.
Denise offers the word “juice” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories. Eugenia offers the word “harmony” to be used in this week’s Weekly Prompt.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 