Warmth
I invited a Duke grad student from China along with me on my last foray to the Blue Ridge, last Tuesday and Wednesday. My intention was to do some night photography at Max Patch Mountain, though, per typical, my Accuweather app, which is correct plus or minus 100% (think about it) fell squarely into the “minus” category with widespread overcast hunkered over Max Patch into the night. That didn’t matter, because that was the only night available to me, so there we were... and my young charge, so unused to such wilderness, enjoyed every second of his time there, including hiking back in the dark. It had rained heavily on our drive up from Durham, and though the rain had moved off, the result was still evident as we hiked to the top… everything was quite wet.
Who doesn’t enjoy a good hike in the mountains? As a photographer, though, my intent is to hike back with a decent photo or two if at all possible. This was the only obliging composition that night… but it speaks to me. This is the only break in the clouds at sunset. The sun’s warmth reached out far enough through the dreary overcast to affect the wet mountain pass below for mist to rise brilliantly into the sunlight… and in that, I see an allegory to an answer to many prevalent problems facing this nation.
I’ve seen and heard issues of every worldview slung around without order or structure as answers to the problems of life. Everything from pacifism to feminism, to socialism, to pantheism, to pragmatism and much more have been offered as answers to our problems… have you ever noticed how idealism, in general, just anything with ‘ist’ or ‘ism’ attached is more often steeped in Godless opinion regardless of truth? Often, that understanding leads to issues of “social justice”… I’ve come to know that when the words “social” and “justice” come together within those worldviews, it becomes little more than another can of worms that makes things worse… nobody needs that. How do you live rationally in that understanding? The Universe conforms to a moral order, which assumes there is a definition of truth, that being what conforms to reality… absolute truth. What that means is that in order to keep from “cutting against the grain of the Universe (Sin Is Folly, Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.)” we must conform to that reality – that moral order – to make rational sense of this life.
So how do we live to bring such rationality to bear? Abraham Kuyper gives us an approach: “If the battle is to be fought with honor and hope of victory, then principle must be arrayed against principle: then it must be felt that in Modernism the vast energy of an all-embracing life-system assails us, then also it must be understood that we have to take our stand in a life-system of equally comprehensive and far-reaching power.” When you understand the light of God and how it can affect those it reaches out to with warmth and peace and depth and understanding and love, you begin to understand there is a far better answer than the “isms” we’re assailed with.
Here’s a stunning lecture on the subject by Chuck Colson. It’s as relevant now as it was then. Please give it some thought… and get inspired! www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2609&v=qPal82KvVHo
The map function here has lost its mind again. Anyone else experiencing that? Max Patch, the Jewel of the Appalachian Trail, should stand alone as its own location. I shot this from the Carolina side of the state line near there, but the map chose the closest community in Tennessee instead with no way to edit it... keep working on it Flickr!
Warmth
I invited a Duke grad student from China along with me on my last foray to the Blue Ridge, last Tuesday and Wednesday. My intention was to do some night photography at Max Patch Mountain, though, per typical, my Accuweather app, which is correct plus or minus 100% (think about it) fell squarely into the “minus” category with widespread overcast hunkered over Max Patch into the night. That didn’t matter, because that was the only night available to me, so there we were... and my young charge, so unused to such wilderness, enjoyed every second of his time there, including hiking back in the dark. It had rained heavily on our drive up from Durham, and though the rain had moved off, the result was still evident as we hiked to the top… everything was quite wet.
Who doesn’t enjoy a good hike in the mountains? As a photographer, though, my intent is to hike back with a decent photo or two if at all possible. This was the only obliging composition that night… but it speaks to me. This is the only break in the clouds at sunset. The sun’s warmth reached out far enough through the dreary overcast to affect the wet mountain pass below for mist to rise brilliantly into the sunlight… and in that, I see an allegory to an answer to many prevalent problems facing this nation.
I’ve seen and heard issues of every worldview slung around without order or structure as answers to the problems of life. Everything from pacifism to feminism, to socialism, to pantheism, to pragmatism and much more have been offered as answers to our problems… have you ever noticed how idealism, in general, just anything with ‘ist’ or ‘ism’ attached is more often steeped in Godless opinion regardless of truth? Often, that understanding leads to issues of “social justice”… I’ve come to know that when the words “social” and “justice” come together within those worldviews, it becomes little more than another can of worms that makes things worse… nobody needs that. How do you live rationally in that understanding? The Universe conforms to a moral order, which assumes there is a definition of truth, that being what conforms to reality… absolute truth. What that means is that in order to keep from “cutting against the grain of the Universe (Sin Is Folly, Cornelius Plantinga, Jr.)” we must conform to that reality – that moral order – to make rational sense of this life.
So how do we live to bring such rationality to bear? Abraham Kuyper gives us an approach: “If the battle is to be fought with honor and hope of victory, then principle must be arrayed against principle: then it must be felt that in Modernism the vast energy of an all-embracing life-system assails us, then also it must be understood that we have to take our stand in a life-system of equally comprehensive and far-reaching power.” When you understand the light of God and how it can affect those it reaches out to with warmth and peace and depth and understanding and love, you begin to understand there is a far better answer than the “isms” we’re assailed with.
Here’s a stunning lecture on the subject by Chuck Colson. It’s as relevant now as it was then. Please give it some thought… and get inspired! www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2609&v=qPal82KvVHo
The map function here has lost its mind again. Anyone else experiencing that? Max Patch, the Jewel of the Appalachian Trail, should stand alone as its own location. I shot this from the Carolina side of the state line near there, but the map chose the closest community in Tennessee instead with no way to edit it... keep working on it Flickr!