I'm fairly old-school in my view of Creation: relatively young earth, six literal, consecutive days, etc. I examined evolution fairly intently in college almost 20 years ago, back when I had to take a lot of science classes for my engineering major, and found it severely wanting. It's a really crummy theory. I haven't studied intelligent design all that much, but from what I have it's not that attractive to me, either, in the end. I wish someone would start with the biblical narrative as a base presupposition and test it. For example, if a world-wide flood really did happen, how did it impact things like continental drift, climate change leading to ice age, and the tilt of the earth? And a big part of the reason why I'm not attracted to anything other than the Genesis account is that when I go out and observe the world around us, it is just too amazing to be explained by these odd theories. Recently I've had the opportunity to see some exciting things.Not too long ago, Half Pint, Vikinglord and I went up to the Sequoias to see the biggest giant sequoia - in fact the biggest tree by volume - in the world, the General Sherman tree.
I've seen big, tall trees, having lived for over two years in the redwoods and visited there a few times since, including going through the famous drive-through tree. But the giant sequoias are simply astonishing. The base of the General Sherman tree above has a diameter bigger than the length of the condo we live in - sheesh! We also drove over to the grove, and went on a short hike, to see the General Grant tree.
There was some road construction while we were there, and for several minutes we had to wait while traffic going the other way went through the construction zone. As we were parked, people a couple cars ahead got out of their car and started pointing up the hill to our right. Curious, I got out to see what it was all about. Right there, no more than 20-25 feet away, were a couple deer, a decent sized buck with a doe. Taking pictures through the bushes and trees was a bit of a challenge, but I think you get a good view of the buck here:
Then a few days ago I went out on the river trail near our home to get a good view of the horizon at sunset. Why? Because one of the brightest comets in years is currently visible, Comet McNaught. I didn't take a picture of it, but if you add homes and trees to the horizon below, plus a little pale orange in the sky, this is pretty much what I saw: When Comet Kahoutek was here back in the 1970's and was a big deal in the news, I didn't get to see it, though I did try. And Halley's was a bust when it came. So it was a real kick to look into the horizon and see with my naked eye a real comet. It was even better with binoculars, and I watched it slowly set into a couple palm trees.
Finally this past weekend there was a pretty good low tide so again Vikinglord, Half Pint and I went down to check out the tidepools. The day turned out to be perfect for finding tidepool critters. We saw a ton of hermit crabs, and a good number of little tidepool sculpin. My son found an octopus that at first looked like a small ray or flatfish pressed against a rock. This was after we saw a gull gulping down a dead octopus. The live octopus was cooler. There were all sorts of gulls and other shorebirds, including a few brown pelicans. The tide was low enough that hundreds of mussels were exposed. We found a starfish - sorry, "sea star" glommed in a hump on the side of a rock, probably enjoying a little mussel dinner. I was able to take one decent photo of a sea star, and tried to get one of a California sea hare, a type of sea slug that we saw several of.
All three of us are ready to go back; my son and I will probably make an effort to get down that way for more of the day to give us time to see the tidepools and go for a decent hike in the large state park nearby.
As we drove out, we got a good look at a Kestrel perched on a sign near the parking lot. Not exactly a common sight in Orange County.
These things exist by chance? No way. The variety of God's Creation is beyond imagining, and too vast for mere chance, and too wonderful a display of His greatness, power and love.
Labels: Family, God's Creation
