The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring…

In thinking about a title for this post, the Gilbert and Sullivan ditty from “The Mikado” came to mind—“The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la, breathe promise of merry sunshine.”    We have had enough moisture plus warm days to bring out the blooms in my front flower garden. The irises appear to be blooming their utmost and before those buds appeared. the tulips did their thing.

The earliest tulips were a cheerful, bright red-orange. But I had a pleasant surprise after our last snow-rain to see two sturdy tulips, this time in a cool lavender hue. They lasted for a week on my dining room table and you can see by the second photograph, the sad demise of the first one.  

 My friend/accountability partner and I are memorizing Psalm 103 and verses 15 and 16 came up to be memorized about the time my tulips bloomed and then slowly died. The verses read as follows: “As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.” (NIV) 

The lesson I got from my tulips along with the verses we were memorizing is this:

1)    I  know my next breath isn’t guaranteed, so I need to cooperate with the Lord in the way I use each of the remaining minutes He allows.

2)    I don’t know how long my family and friends are going to be left on this planet so I need to let them know I love and appreciate them. And see that I do that more than once a yearJ

Obviously there are verses surrounding the ones I mentioned above and the psalmist (and God) doesn’t leave us on a negative note as we can see in verse 17 of Psalm 103: “But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children—“

My flowers give me joy and I can thank the Lord for them. You, my friends and family also give me joy and I love you. May I ever be aware of opportunities to say so and thank the Lord for you.

A Natural Wonder

After completing my morning regimen, I turned on my computer today and discovered it is Earth Day. I had been considering the following item as a blog post so this seems the perfect day to do so.

As I was listening to NPR several weeks ago on the way to a meeting, a fellow was being interviewed about a “boiling river” he had discovered (not as in being the first to see it, but as a new geographical feature to him—and many others).

I wasn’t taking notes as I listened, naturally, so later I did a search on the internet in hopes of finding further information on this “boiling river.” Bingo! It popped right up on my computer screen.

A young Peruvian geoscientist, Andres Ruzo, had been fascinated about the myth of a boiling river since he was a child. But it wasn’t until he began writing his PhD thesis on geothermal potential in Peru that he began to wonder if such a thing was possible. All the experts told him that hot rivers exist but they are somehow connected with volcanoes. There are no volcanoes in the area Ruzo hailed from.

In 2011 Ruzo hiked into the Amazon forest with his aunt. She and his mother claimed they had actually swam in a portion of the boiling river as youngsters (obviously not the hottest part). When Ruzo arrived, he saw a river rising with steam, so he whipped out his thermometer and took its temperatureJ It was 86 degrees Celsius—not quite boiling but definitely hot enough to cook.   

Thermal pools in other parts of the world get to this temperature, but he witnessed a huge area at that heat—25 meters wide, 6 meters deep, extending for 6.24 km. (When you translate that to US measurements that is roughly 75 feet wide, 18 feet deep, extending maybe 3-4 miles) I’m not sure of my conversion figures but that is a lot of hot water.

The river is 700 km from the closest volcanic system so Ruzo wanted to discover the mysterious source of this boiling river. He got permission from the local

Shaman to study the river and its ecosystem. He discovered the hot water comes from fault-fed hot springs. Here’s the example given: “Imagine Earth like a human body, with fault lines and cracks running through it like arteries. These ‘Earth arteries’ are filled with hot water, and when they come to the surface, we see geothermal manifestations, like the boiling river.”

The river water was analyzed and was shown to have originally fallen to earth as rain. Ruzo hypothesized this happened far upstream and the rain water seeped down into the ground where it was heated up by Earth’s geothermal energy and then emerged as the boiling river.

The next statement in this article is totally fascinating. “This [hypothesis] means the system is part of an enormous hydrothermal system, the likes of which haven’t been seen anywhere else on the planet.”

Ruzo has researched the microbes living in the hot water and has discovered new species. As for swimming in the river, it can be done only after a heavy rainfall has diluted the hot water--personally, I wouldn’t want to chance it. Normally, the indigenous people use the hot water for brewing tea and cooking. (I wonder if some enterprising person has discovered how to pipe it into their home?)

That’s the science lesson for Earth Day 2016. Once again we see how wondrously our Creator has formed our world and everything in it.

Springtime in the Rockies…

often means snow and sleet. At least that’s what we experienced on the Tuesday after Easter (March 29), the day we planned to leave for Tucson. Weather reports the night before were forecasting 18-24 inches in Ely, Nevada during the next 24-36 hours, and that was the route we usually take—Elko-Ely-Las Vegas-Kingman, AZ for the first day and on to Tucson the second day.

Tuesday morning began with no exiting Elko without snow tires or chains, neither of which my rental car was equipped with. Brian kept watching the weather maps via the internet and by 10 AM the Pequops mountain range had lifted the snow tire/chains requirement. By 10:30 AM we were backing out of our driveway and heading for Salt Lake City, UT and I -15 South—a longer route to Kingman but doable.

I wish I had pictures of the blue sky at the edge of the Salt Flats which minutes later turned into a stormy one with road surface and outlying areas covered with icy crystals at least an inch deep. And to add insult to injury, this occurred again about fifteen minutes later. Generally, Brian takes pictures of interesting weather phenomena but this time he was too busy keeping the car on the road (plus, I would have been screaming at him if he’d attempted any photography at the time).

The week prior to that trip, Elko weather had been beautiful—enough so that I brought in some of my daffodils from the front flower garden. This picture was taken before Easter.

Once we got to Tucson, their weather was lovely and visits with family and friends were delightful. We managed to leave Arizona before the thermometer hit 90 degrees and came back to Elko in lovely weather.

However, the storms do love to move in on us from the Pacific, and this most recent one finally managed to bring snow to our valley instead of rain. This is what our backyard looked like this morning (April 15). The snow is gone now but we could well see more before it’s safe to plant a garden without benefit of a greenhouse.

So for you readers who live in a much more dependable climate, you can either enjoy the “boredom” or move to a location where, if you don’t like what the weather is doing, just wait fifteen minutes.

The Bridegroom’s Sacrifice

This story comes from friends who minister with Wycliffe Bible Translators. It is such a beautiful symbol of what Christ has done for us, I wanted to spread the story further.

The Mangseng people of Papua New Guinea (PNG) tell about a type of silk worm called a “Thong.” When the Thongs hatch, they are small caterpillars that eat the leaves of the tree they were born on until they grow big and plump, about the size of a thumb. Then they move to a fork in the tree and each one spins its cocoon, building one on top of the other until there is a nest of cocoons.

In this area of PNG it rains a lot, and the cocoons are porous. If left alone, the rain

would soak into the cocoons and the creatures would all die. One Thong takes it upon himself to waterproof all the others. He spins a sticky brown silk and attaches leaves and sticks in layers around the nest until it is completely covered over with leaves, much like a cast, and the nest is safe from the rain.

This Thong is now outside the safety of the nest he covered up. He dies and falls to the ground. As time passes, the caterpillars are transformed into beautiful

Cricula moths, free to live and fly.   

                                                                           

As Jesus gave up His life to cover us so we can live and be transformed into His beautiful likeness.

We are the redeemed Bride of Christ.

Isaiah 62:5b (NIV) “...as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will

your God rejoice over you.”

Broken Circles

Having been assigned the biohazard symbol to incorporate into a piece of wring, I was curious about its beginnings. According to Wikipedia, Dow Chemical came up with this symbol which is universally recognized, at least in the US, for caution regarding a dangerous substance.   

The symbol was chosen because it was “meaningless, but memorable ,” and Dow even ran some test studies to check out how memorable it actually was. The symbol apparently passed with flying colors.

My educational background dealt with music education, not science, medicine, or mining. Consequently, my first thought when seeing the biohazard symbol was unorthodox--I saw circles with pieces missing--broken circles.  That, in turn, led me to think of broken relationships, broken marriages, and broken families, either caused by death or selfishness.

As I look at what I think of as broken circles (the biohazard symbol), it seems to aptly represent our broken world. After all, we wouldn’t need this symbol if there were no harmful substances present in the first place.

At the beginning of time according to Genesis, the first book in the Old Testament, our world was perfect, unbroken, like heaven on earth. Then mankind decided to disobey God and their perfect world disappeared. Pain and death plagued mankind as well as the other creatures that covered the earth. St. Paul writes in the book of Romans that the creation (world) continues to groan for a healing of its brokenness.

The good news is our broken world now has the opportunity of healing the breaches made by sin/disobedience. When God the Father sent Jesus, God the Son, to earth as a baby who grew up to be a man, He culminated His work on planet earth by dying on a cross. Miraculously taking our sins on Himself  through His death, He did not stay dead! Three days later, Jesus was once again alive, through an awesome manifestation of God’s power. That was just the first step of hope for this broken world.

Forty days later Jesus’ disciples watched Him ascend into heaven, no doubt with their jaws dropping in amazement. The scripture says two men dressed in white suddenly appeared beside them and asked, “Why are you standing here looking up into the sky? Jesus, Who just left you, taken into heaven, will come back the same way.”

When Jesus, the King, returns, the broken earth will be healed. The Hope of the Ages will make all the broken circles complete. And we won’t need any more biohazard symbols. 

The Four Seasons

I was born and raised in the Midwest so my instant frame of reference  tied to the four seasons consist of the names, Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall. (We call it Fall in rural Missouri—not sure who calls it autumn.) As I sit here contemplating the subject , this question occurs to me.  Which season is first? Calendar-wise, that would be Winter. However, according to life cycles, one could argue for Spring.

At any rate, for twenty-one years I saw the four seasons delineated: Spring brought rain with grass, alfalfa and clover fields greening up. Baby calves were born and flowers bloomed.

Summer meant humidity along with a gambler’s toss of rain or drought. Getting the right amount of rain and dry times would make or break the corn crop planted in late spring and brought lots of fresh peas, green beans and tomatoes in home gardens.

 Fall means harvesting time to a farmer; pick corn, combine wheat, bale hay and dig matured root crops in the garden like potatoes and onions. Pumpkins, zucchini and cucumbers would also be picked and canned or frozen.

Winter brings onslaughts of snow and too often, freezing rain. But winter also meant walking to the “north forty” and chopping down the perfect Christmas tree, putting it up in the living room, decorating it with a star that harked back to the early 1940’s and enjoying that spicy, cedar-y smell from the tree for two weeks.

Then I moved West.

Having now lived over two-thirds of my life in Wyoming and Nevada means that my experience of the four seasons shows a decrease in number. Wyoming’s seasons are often Winter, Winter, Winter, and two weeks each of Spring, Summer, and Fall—if it’s a mild year. (There are some areas of Wyoming that don’t adhere to these seasonal vagaries, but they don’t cluster around I-80.)

Nevada also sometimes has years consisting of Winter, Winter, Whatever, and Winter. However, we do often have a month of Spring in June, followed by one-two months of Summer in July and August. September is often equivocal and October is usually Fall/Winter. Followed once more by Winter—generally lots of it.

This is all OK as far as I’m concerned. Like Louis Armstrong wrote, “That lucky Ol’ Sun keeps rollin’ ‘round heaven all day.” And that leads me to think of a favorite hymn, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” The second verse says something about summer and winter, springtime and harvest and the way God keeps all the seasons as well as day and night in order and on time. That’s a pretty heavy task and I’m glad He’s up to it.

Are You In the Middle?

I have always viewed the middle as a sort of safe spot. Sort of unequivocal, neither right nor left, even on the fence, all of which is not particularly admirable.

I am the older of two children so we didn’t have a middle child in our family. Judging by “Malcolm in the Middle” and sociological articles, being in the middle of a family’s birth order is not a particularly comfortable spot.

In this era we also see something called the “sandwich generation.” People from 40-60 years old are still raising children (or in some cases, grandchildren) while needing to be caretakers of aging parents with chronic illnesses, etc. Again, not a position one might choose.

Perhaps you find yourself embroiled in the middle of a situation whether relationally or geographically and you feel like these books, hemmed in by the bookends. 

Recently, I was able to attend a conference taught by Beth Moore,  Her Bible teaching is always so appropriate and applicable to our every-day lives and this conference was no exception. Everyone of us are in the”middle of” some sort of life circumstance—even if, at this point you are in the middle of a time of peace and serenity.

Here is just one New Testament reference she used describing how Jesus helped His disciples as they were in the middle of a hopeless situation. Mark 6:45-51 gives us a startling picture of Jesus walking on the waters of a stormy Sea of Galilee. His disciples were in the middle of this storm and He graciously calms the sea.

Take-away lesson: “’In the middle’ is the last place we expect a miracle and often where we get one.”

In John 19:6 we again see Jesus “in the middle"—this time, dying for us on a cross between two sinners, one rejecting Him, the other accepting His gift of salvation. It was no accident that God planted Jesus’ cross ‘in the middle” of dying sinners. Thinking about this is especially poignant as we near Easter.

But back to being in the middle…of something. Wherever we find ourselves, we need to remember He is only a “Help me, Jesus,” away. In Matthew 11:28 Jesus tells us, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” No more need to fear the pressure and stress of being “in the middle of….” Thank You, Lord.