Surface Tension

 

I find surface tension—which is a simple phenomenon, I suppose, as far as scientific phenomena go—fascinating and beautiful. So when I saw the water in my teacup hovering above the rim, I took some pictures.

How great are your works, LORD!
How profound your designs!
A senseless person cannot know this;
a fool cannot comprehend.

(Psalm 92:6-7 NAB)

Big Baby

Baby Rhino King

Here is baby rhinoceros King about three weeks before his first birthday at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.  On his birthday he weighed more than 1000 pounds. A zoo official told me, on the day I photographed King, that he was still nursing, even with that horn!

Troubled Planet

Troubled Planet

Let us pray for our troubled world and for all, including ourselves, who commit violence in deed, word, or thought.

See "Justice, Compassion, Prayer" on the blog, "Caught Up in God."

- - - - -

“Troubled Planet” image is by Rose Hoover, rc (with fire texture adapted from NASA photos).

How Manifold Your Works

Pepper and Tomato on Ledge

You cause the grass to grow for the cattle,

and plants for people to use,
to bring forth food from the earth,

and wine to gladden the human heart,
oil to make the face shine,

and bread to strengthen the human heart.

O Lord, how manifold are your works!

(Psalm 104:14-15, 24) 

Moon over Chicago

Full moon over Chicago from the Cenacle roof

(Click on photo to view full size.)

THE MOON IS ALSO BUSY

I bow to God in gratitude,

And I find the moon is also busy

Doing the same.

I bow to God in great happiniess,

And I learn from where the suns

And the children

And my heart

All borrow their Light.

I bow to the Friend in deep reverence

And discover a marvelous secret carried in the air:

This whole Universe is just as blessed

And divinely crazed as I,

And just as lost in this Wonderful Holy Dance.

My dear,

After such a long, long journey,

God has made another soul

Free!

Now all Hafiz wants to do

Is open a beautiful Tavern

Where this Sacred Wine

Of God's Truth, Knowledge and Love

Is forever and ever

Freely offered to you.

O bow to God in gratitude,

And some day

You will see how

The moon is also busy doing the same.

I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy (Renderings of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky) Penguin, 2006.

At Play in the Cosmos

(This image is composed of multiple layers: among others, a fractal flame and Hubble's photo of Galaxy Cluster 1E 0657-556.)

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you. . .

Ephesians 1:17

Iced Tea Season

Now that the weather is getting warmer, it is time to share with you some of my photos of, yes, a glass of iced tea!

Light shining on glass of ice and tea

(Click on image to view full size.)

Variations:

 

 

 

 

 

I saw written as in letters of gold this word Goodness,

which I repeated for a long while with an indescribable sweetness.

I saw it, I say, written on all creatures,

animate and inanimate, rational or not — 

 all bore this name of goodness. 

(Saint Therese Couderc)

Flying Saucer?

(Click photos to view full size.)

This photograph is of a large soap bubble in a glass plate.  As you see, the room was dark except for one strategically placed light—which, curiously enough, looks a bit like an angel hovering in the bubble.

Since the picture reminded me of a flying saucer, I decided to have a little fun and situate it in a whimsical space scene.  The result is below.

Hawk Gazing

(Click photo to view full size.)

(This hawk is not the same bird as Hopkin's windhover, but this raptor can also inspire awe.)

The Windhover

To Christ our Lord 

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
    dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
    Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

   No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
    Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Rock and Hawk

  by Robinson Jeffers

Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes.

This gray rock, standing tall
On the headland, where the seawind
Lets no tree grow,

Earthquake-proved, and signatured
By ages of storms: on its peak
A falcon has perched.

I think, here is your emblem
To hang in the future sky;
Not the cross, not the hive,

But this; bright power, dark peace;
Fierce consciousness joined with final
Disinterestedness;

Life with calm death; the falcon's 
Realist eyes and act
Married to the massive

Mysticism of stone,
Which failure cannot cast down
Nor success make proud.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15478#sthash.fwInHg0P.dpuf

Rock and Hawk

  by Robinson Jeffers

Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes.

This gray rock, standing tall
On the headland, where the seawind
Lets no tree grow,

Earthquake-proved, and signatured
By ages of storms: on its peak
A falcon has perched.

I think, here is your emblem
To hang in the future sky;
Not the cross, not the hive,

But this; bright power, dark peace;
Fierce consciousness joined with final
Disinterestedness;

Life with calm death; the falcon's 
Realist eyes and act
Married to the massive

Mysticism of stone,
Which failure cannot cast down
Nor success make proud.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15478#sthash.fwInHg0P.dpuf

Rock and Hawk

  by Robinson Jeffers

Here is a symbol in which
Many high tragic thoughts
Watch their own eyes.

This gray rock, standing tall
On the headland, where the seawind
Lets no tree grow,

Earthquake-proved, and signatured
By ages of storms: on its peak
A falcon has perched.

I think, here is your emblem
To hang in the future sky;
Not the cross, not the hive,

But this; bright power, dark peace;
Fierce consciousness joined with final
Disinterestedness;

Life with calm death; the falcon's 
Realist eyes and act
Married to the massive

Mysticism of stone,
Which failure cannot cast down
Nor success make proud.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15478#sthash.fwInHg0P.dpuf

Winter Sunsets

Pale Sun through Winter Haze

Same Scene on a Clear Day

January Icicles

January Icicles

 

Bless the Lord, light and darkness;
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.

Bless the Lord, ice and cold;
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever. 

Bless the Lord, frosts and snows;

    sing praise to him and highly exalt him forever.

(Prayer of Azariah 1:48-50)