Last week I spent some time taking pictures at Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville. These are pictures of the front of the chapel. God’s doing some beautiful work. Learn more about Scarritt Bennett Center.
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Posts tagged as:
creation
The Owl -- or Big Foot
During the week I was on vacation in Colorado I kept hearing a strange bird during the night. I thought it was a confused blue jay. (You know how sometimes birds get confused and do strange things?) It was loud — screechy and annoying — especially at 3:30 a.m. outside my window. After hearing the bird for several nights I marched outside after dark, armed with a flashlight, and determined to let the bird know that it was time to sleep. Turned out it wasn’t a jay. It was an owl — a really BIG owl. (Here’s a link to some information on — and much better pictures of – the Great Horned Owl.)
So, in the place of TV and the internet (neither of which we had access to), we watched The Owl Reality Show for the next few nights. Just as the sun went down, we headed outside with flashlights, cameras, and the tripod. One the second night, we got lucky and watched the owl for 15 minutes or so as it ate its breakfast. It was perched on the top of a tree recently trimmed by the electrical crews.
After a couple of nights enduring noisy humans with flashlights and cameras, the owl moved to a quieter spot. But it was really fun while it lasted. Thanks be to God, creator of heaven and earth — and the Great Horned Owl.
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Colorado morning sky
God, your sun shines today on the creation you have made.
You paint the sky with clouds
and splash your leaves with riots of colors.
The beauty of your work fills me with awe and wonder.
Thank you for giving me the gift of life.
O God our Creator, I praise you with open eyes.
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- A potato — growing in adversity
It’s not an alien life form. It’s a red potato. I found it on the floor in the pantry behind the recycling bin. Who knows how long it had been laying there in the dark, sending out shoots, looking for life. It’s another image in my series of pictures on growing in adversity — how living things (including people) are able to survive and grow in the face of overwhelming circumstances.
Last year, I wrote an article on this. You can read the article and see other pictures on The Upper Room website.
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- Spring wildflowers
One morning in the early spring, my phone rang. My friend, JoAnn Miller, asked, “Do you have your camera today? The wildflowers are in bloom.” That afternoon, she drove me on a special tour of the wildflowers along highways of middle Tennessee. JoAnn took us through parks and clear into the next county to find the wildflowers.
As we drove through the rain that day, she said to me, “Now, around the next curve, you’ll see a whole hillside of Dutchman’s Breeches.” Or “Up here on the right is a bright red flower called Fire Pink.” Or “Later in the spring, the Bluebells will cover the sides of this river bank.”
I was amazed at her knowledge of these tiny, delicate gifts from the creator. We drove over 50 miles, and JoAnn knew which roadside to watch for the Trout Lily and which hillside to see the Shooting Star just coming into their peak. She showed me a glimpse into her world, where her open eyes and years of patient watching have led to a gifted knowledge of springtime beauty.
How many worlds do we miss because we don’t take the time to pause, look, and learn about the immense creation around us? Praise God for the lowly wildflower and for those, like JoAnn, who really see them.
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