Dale offers the prompt “the best of the rest” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
Cosmic Photo Challenge: The Best Of The Rest
Isaiah 7:14
Six Sentence Story: Gloria
The shepherds knew an angel who
had told them of His birth.
They went to see the mystery
of peace, goodwill on earth.
Today as well we yearn to tell,
like them, this tale of love,
with accent true with joy that’s new
from ancient songs above.
Go on and see beyond the tree
how righteousness reigns there.
He will not leave though devils grieve.
He’s with us everywhere.
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Denise offers the prompt word “accent” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
I am grateful to P. A. Oltrogge whose book of poems, tales, carols and Bible verses, Christmas on the Porch, reminded me that it is the Christmas season and a narrative poem may be the best story.
Cosmic Photo Challenge: A Winter’s Walk
Dale offers the prompt “a winter’s walk” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
There are many trails where we live in South Carolina.
This trail is a couple miles long and I can walk to it from the sidewalk. Indeed, it is hard to tell where the sidewalk stops and the trail begins.
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Review: J.C. Walton’s Compact Time
Book: J.C. Walter, Compact Time: Radiocarbon Dating & the Case for a Young Earth, New Creation, 2025.
The main difference between compact time (CpT) which the author promotes and deep time (DpT) is that geological time is based on a calculated adjustment of ages provided by the decay of Carbon-14 (14C) rather than the decay of uranium or other such radioactive isotopes.
14C decay by itself provides a reliable measure of time for the past 3000 or so years and it is used in archeological research. However, for objects much older than that age it runs into problems with known historical dates. CpT is a calculated adjustment for 14C to agree with better known archeological dates.
Also since 14C is present throughout the fossil record this suggests strongly that the fossil record itself is not very old. This falsifies DpT. Soft tissue in dinosaur fossils confirms the shorter age as well. If one applies CpT to the fossil record one gets a geological time measurement that agrees with archeology and suggests a possible age for the fossil record.
A short age implies that the hypothesized catastrophes of the past forming the geological mega-sequences should be lumped together into one “giga-catastrophe” which can be associated with the biblical flood of Genesis 6-9 along with stories of the flood in many other cultures. The author puts the giga-catastrophe about 5350 years ago which is close to the estimate used by the Associates for Biblical Research for the biblical flood. The years since the giga-catastrophe is a parameter in the model for CpT given in Chapter 5.
The author provides a clear presentation that is well documented for those who would like to try using CpT or research it further.
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Luke 2:12
Six Sentence Story: The Sixty-Third Of The Seventy Weeks
Daniel wrote, Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.1
Although at first he didn’t understand, he knew he was promised understanding and that this was an answer to his supplication. But how did the virgin with child that Isaiah prophesied fit into all of this and why that name Immanuel?
The channel of events in the vision ended ominously with: and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.2
Understanding comes through obedience and as Daniel wrote in obedience his understanding matured until he realized the virgin’s role between the going forth of the commandment to rebuild the walls and this desolation along with the central importance of the sixty-third of those seventy weeks when the covenant would be confirmed.
As gratitude overwhelmed him with peace Daniel could see that the ink was dry enough for him to roll up the scroll.
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Denise offers the prompt word “channel” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
This completes the Daniel tales.
Cosmic Photo Challenge: Lights, Camera, Christmas
Dale offers the prompt, “lights, camera, Christmas” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.
Below are some ornaments from our tree this year. We’ve had them for decades. We’ve had the tree for decades as well.
Merry Christmas!
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Psalm 150:6
Six Sentence Story: The Cost Of Treason
After Nimrodwannabe’s kingdom fell to the Medes and Persians, Daniel won the favor of Darius, the new king, to the envy of others. Some of those others deceived Darius into passing a law, secretly targeting Daniel to get rid of him, that Darius could not undo punishable by death to whomever broke it.
When Daniel did not obey he was arrested and sentenced to spend a night in the den of lions who were kept hungry by not feeding them provision from the lion keeper’s shed. All Darius could do at this point to save his favorite was wait and see if Daniel’s God could and would protect him from the treasonous setup.
When Daniel survived Darius had the deceivers – along with their wives and children – cast into the same den for the lions to execute judgment. The lions eagerly did.
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Denise offers the word “shed” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.
Daniel 6:24 KJV – And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den.
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 