Tag: Light

Tree shading

Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch… How long does it take for the grass to die?

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Image of the day – 178

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click to enlarge

Trees provide shade, most welcome on a hot day, and they provide shelter when it rains (though this may be unwise during thunderstorms).

But notice the absence of grass beneath these conifers. Shade and shelter are exactly what other plants don’t need; they depend on plenty of light and water to enable them to grow. Light is essential as it provides the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and water is essential as the raw material for this process. The oxygen is released into the atmosphere, while the hydrogen is bonded with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make energy-storing sugars for use at night and to build cellulose, the main support molecule that gives stems, branches and tree trunks their strength.

The lack of light and water under tree canopies creates a kind of local desert. You can see this clearly in the photo from the presence and absence of grass. So how do the trees survive? That’s a great question! Their roots spread out widely and deep, far enough to reach moist soil and deep ground water. In persistent rain, water drips from the drenched leaves above. And root, trunk and branch all contain stores of water so a tree can cope with a long, dry summer far better than the grass can.

Light

Here’s an experiment anyone can do. Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch. See how long it takes for the grass to turn yellow. How long does it take for the grass to die?

For plants, light is essential. There are some animals that live in dark caves or underground, with no light. Earthworms are a good example, but like all animals they get their food by consuming plants and other animals. But for most creatures, including us humans, light is essential nonetheless. Whether we are plant eaters (like cows and sheep) or meat eaters (like lions and wolves) or omnivores eating either or both (like humans and rats) we still need light to see in order to find and identify the things we must eat to stay alive.

Water

For plants, water is part of their ‘food’, it’s needed to make sugars. For animals water is of no value as food, but it’s essential to prevent dangerous dehydration. All animals know when they’re thirsty and they’ll find water and drink to keep themselves alive. Think of a man lost in a desert, the cartoons have him croaking out, ‘Water.. Water..’ Imagine someone unable to find water, they’d die of thirst long, long before they died of hunger. Most of us would be in danger after a few days without drinking, but we could live for several weeks with nothing to eat. And of course, if you are a fish too little water would mean you couldn’t breathe, and if you were a land animal too much would mean you would drown.

Spiritual (not religious)

The idea of essentials has been carried over into spiritual ideas too. Light and water (and food) are so clearly necessary for life that they make good analogies and illustrations. What did Jesus mean when he said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’? Or when he explained to the Samaritan woman at the well that he would provide water that never runs out, or when he told his followers, ‘I am the bread of life’ or ‘I am the light of the world’?

He was simply saying, I am essential, you can’t live without me. I’m necessary for life. Just as in the physical world, how would it feel to live in the dark, without water and without sustenance? How long would you last? How long would I last?

Many people today feel sure there is no spiritual aspect to life at all, it’s just about living your life in the here and now and then dying from accident, illness, or just old age. Others think there’s much more to life than that. At the very least there are moral and philosophical truths to consider. We should care for one another, help one another, and cooperate in helpful and kind ways.

Food for thought. Let me know below how you think about the essentials of life. Do you have any thoughts to share on this?

See also:

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Image of the day – 20
Churn flooding
Image of the day – 38

Bare trees along the horizon

Trying to make out any details when the sun is shining in your face is really difficult. But if you turn around so the sun is behind you, shining over your shoulder, it illuminates everything you can see.

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Image of the day – 147

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click to enlarge

This photo was taken on 6th March, it was a grey evening, the sun had set and the only hint remaining was a touch of pinkness in the areas not shrouded in cloud. The ground around me as I walked was already well into dusk.

Details remaining visible

The only details visible were in the edges of the cloud against the fading sky, and the branches of the leafless trees. But what exquisite details those were! Delicate differences in the shades of grey in the clouds, and a wonderful filigree pattern in the branches, varying from one tree to the next.

It’s a subdued scene, still and inactive, but delightful for all that.

Light and dark

In broad daylight the picture would have been so different! The grassy fields this side of the row of trees would have been vibrant green, the sky would have been bright blue and the clouds white or perhaps grey with white edges.

Another kind of light and dark

If you follow Journeys of Heart and Mind regularly you’ll know that I do my best to follow Jesus. I’m not going to say much about that here, maybe I’ll write another article to explain a bit more.

But I will mention here that this image reminds me that Jesus talked to his followers about light and darkness. Imagine the view in the photo if the sun had been visible just above the trees. The brightness would have been quite blinding, trying to make out any details when the sun is shining in your face is really difficult. But if you turn around so the sun is behind you, shining over your shoulder, it illuminates everything you can see and the detail is crisp and sharp, things are well defined, there’s no glare, there are no shadows unless you look to one side or down at your feet.

Light can dazzle us and hide things from view, or it can make things much, much clearer. It all depends which way you look.

Jesus is like that too, I find. If I look towards him I am dazzled indeed! If instead I look towards the places he’s illuminating, I can see everything very clearly. I need to do both, I need to be dazzled by him, but I also need the clarity provided by his light as it falls on the world around me. There’s a double benefit, he dazzles me, but he also informs me.

See also:

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You might like these posts too…

Dark sky, bright light
Mist arising
OTKC 05: Let Your Light Shine
An old survivor

Living in the presence

To come away with a shining face you must first go into the place where the glory is, you must stand face-to-face with the One who is the Presence.

Reading Chris Dryden’s ‘Concepts’ post, I was aware that I should write about how Father deals with me face to face. He always does this when I’m least expecting it, but I always know it’s him.

When I was a child, back in the 1950s and early ’60s, I had one or two luminous toys, and later a luminous watch. I never tired of holding these up to the light at night time and then turning the light off and watching the weird, greenish glow fade slowly over the next few minutes.

Some background
The Orrery
(Wikimedia)

Let’s begin by setting the scene. Here I was, married and with an infant daughter, living in a very modest house in a very modest street, Judy and I had to be careful with the little money we had. Second hand everything, no car, riding my bike to work. A very typical story in the early years of married life. We were friends with another couple just a street away and had been meeting with them to read the Bible, pray together, and explore what the Holy Spirit was doing at that time in our area. They were Anglicans, we were from the Evangelical chapel at the far end of the village, but differences like that seemed utterly irrelevant.

On one particular evening as we were praying, a picture came into my mind. We were children, playing with bricks from large piles stacked on the ground. We were making little houses with them, walls of a few bricks with a gap for a doorway, another gap for a window and a few more bricks balanced on the top for a roof. We’d made several of these tiny ‘houses’ when the builder arrived on the scene.

He strode towards us through the mud and puddles and looked down at us. We thought he’d be cross so we jumped up to run away; if we ran in different directions we might all get away! But he smiled down at us and said,

‘I’m here to build a real house. If you scatter the bricks around, it’ll slow down my work, but if you bring the bricks to where I’m working, you’ll save me time and the house will be finished sooner’. So we did exactly that, we ran around collecting bricks and stacking them at his feet, while he got on with the work of building the house. And up it went, it was magnificent.

What we understood from this

I shared this ‘picture’ with my friends, Tony and Faith. And we could all see what it meant right away. The house is the church – not Anglican, not Evangelical, just the church. And the bricks were people – us, our friends, anyone we could bring into the builder’s presence. And the builder, of course, was Jesus. He is the one who said, ‘I will build my church’. And what resulted over the next few years was that a number of people including us (the living stones) were built into something very special indeed. It was a body pulsing with spiritual life and energy, especially when we met, but overflowing into the world around us too. I can say that for me, having this foundation and experience changed how I viewed my life more generally – at work, at home, with my parents, with friends, with family.

So don’t build structures with the people who belong to Jesus, but assist him as he directs and builds. Chris Dryden, writing on his site Life with CD, wrote recently about Moses speaking face-to-face with Yahweh. Maybe you should read his post and then come back here afterwards…

For 40 days – Day 8: Covenant Renewed: Concepts

…Reading the concepts article sparked a new thought in my mind. All those years ago in the mid 1970s I’d had face-to-face conversations with Father through the presence of his Spirit! That describes the way it felt (and still does).

Moses in the Presence

Chris Dryden wrote about Moses and the conversations he had with Yahweh, face-to-face, created-to-creator, follower-to-leader. That was a mighty privilege; it still is! And it left Moses with a glow on his face (and I imagine, a glow in his heart as well). Do I have a glow on my face after conversing with Jesus through the power and presence of his Spirit? Yes, I think I do. The connection and the conversation leave me changed in a way that people can see. Not a visible glowing, but a glowing heart and a face that relaxes and smiles in a new way as I describe the revelation to those around me. Really, I suppose, an awestruck and amazed face!

Have you witnessed the glowing hearts and faces of people who’ve been in the Presence, in conversation with the King of Kings? If you’ve spent time in meetings when the Holy Spirit is allowed in and there are prophesies and pictures and singing and dancing and arms raised – then yes, I bet you’ve seen those shining faces! There is nothing to beat face-to-face time. That’s true with family, with friends, and it’s true with Jesus as well. We come away encouraged, lifted up, newly informed – there is nothing like being in the Presence. We all come away with shining faces, you bet we do!

But, just like Moses, to come away with a shining face you must first go into the place where the glory is, you must stand face-to-face with the One who is the Presence. The Shekinah Glory is his and his alone. Our faces shine with an absorbed light, just like those luminous toys.

But what is even more precious is that going about, living my ordinary life, the Spirit often surprises me. I see something, hear something, think something, and suddenly in that moment I realise there’s a spark from him. He speaks face-to-face with me without any effort on my part. He lives within me even when I’m unaware!

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Image of the day – 24

Windows have been around almost as long as houses. At first the only opening was the way in and out of the building – think of a tent or an igloo.

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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.

I’m posting an image every day (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.

Windows have multiple functions, they let in light and they provide a view, if they can be opened they provide fresh air and allow a room to cool down, when they’re closed they prevent rain from entering and enable sunshine to warm the room.

Windows have been around almost as long as houses. At first the only opening was the way in and out of the building – think of a tent or an igloo, or an Iron-Age thatched hut. Later, other openings, too small and high to walk through, took over the functions of letting in light and so forth, and the doorway could then be closed off with a curtain or a wooden door.

Today we take all of this for granted, of course. As you know, I like to find parallels between the objects in the images and anything else that comes to mind. So today, I’d like to point out the parallel between a window allowing light and fresh air into a room and whatever it is that lets thoughts and fresh ideas into our minds. Some people are more observant than others, some of us have minds that are closed to certain ideas but open to others.

This time I’ll avoid drawing conclusions, but I invite you to give it some thought and share your own ideas and ponderings below.

Themed image collections

The links below will take you to the first post in each collection

Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa

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Attic staircase

Perspective changes how we see things generally … Whether you’re considering a person, or an opinion, or solving a practical problem, the way you look at things can change everything.

Donna and I visited William and Jane Morris’ home, Kelmscott Manor, in the little, Oxfordshire village of Kelmscott. They lived here from 1871 until 1896. It was a warm, sunny day and we enjoyed lunch in the garden as well as exploring the house.

The attic staircase

Kelmscott Manor is full of furniture from the Jacobean to Victorian periods, and of course it’s also full of William Morris designs in the form of wallpapers, fabrics, and tapestries. An amazing place and well worth a visit.

Yet something that stood out for me was this staircase connecting the attic space in the roof with the the lower floors of the house proper. What I like about the photo is the effect of light from the window, and the various textures: the sturdy, wrought iron handrail, which crosses oddly and uncompromisingly in front of the window; the wood of the stair treads; the polished timber of the railing at the top; the mix of reflected colours on what is actually a plain, white wall; and the odd angles created by variations in perspective – it’s quite magical!

Maybe I’ll post again about this lovely old house and its fabulous contents, but for now I’ll leave you with the interesting composition of light playing on an ordinary, day-to-day, attic staircase.

And there’s a life lesson here for us if we think a little deeper. Perspective changes how we see things generally, not just staircases. Whether you’re considering a person, or an opinion, or solving a practical problem, the way you look at things can change everything. Maybe you’re better at this than me, but I need to learn to alter my perspective more willingly when necessary.

See also:

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Truth matters

If I’m given misinformation and base my thoughts, words and actions on that, sooner or later I’ll run into a problem

In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act

George Orwell

Truth matters. It matters because basing our thoughts, words and actions on falsehood is asking for trouble. Truth is like light: it enables us to see clearly, it banishes darkness, but it can be snuffed out and then we’re left in the dark.

Light banishes darkness as truth banishes deceit

Let’s explore the background, why am I writing about truth at this particular time? And why am I writing about it at all? I’m writing about it at this particular time because truth seems to be valued by fewer people than ever before. There have always been those who trample on truth, but we do seem to be living at a time when peddling falsehoods has become pandemic. Perhaps the most obvious examples are in the political sphere, where governments and their opponents have sometimes made claims based on almost anything other than the simple facts. Policies and decisions are being made on the basis of opinion, personal ambition, whim, wishful thinking, and even denial of clear evidence. I’m writing about it because it matters. It really does. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Is this a new phenomenon? No, people have always made things up, sometimes to fill gaps in what is known, sometimes to deny what is known because it’s distasteful or hard to deal with, or for the base motives that are common, if we’re honest, to all of us – greed, self preservation, shame, fear and the rest. Survival, self-respect, money and power are important to us – sometimes important enough that we will cheat, lie, and ignore inconvenient truths that are staring us in the face.

So why does it matter?

(I said we’d get to that.)

The answer is really quite simple. If I’m given misinformation and base my thoughts, words and actions on that, sooner or later I’ll run into a problem. You can’t avoid the truth indefinitely, it will come back and bite you. Misinformation leads inevitably to error and confusion.

Truth matters, and it can be critically important, even to the point of life or death.

Imagine a map that shows a bridge across a river. An ambulance crew see that the bridge provides a valuable short cut to reach a seriously ill patient in half the time. But when they arrive at the river – there is no bridge. They have to retrace their journey and try a different way, but they are too late and the patient dies. Truth matters, and it can be critically important, even to the point of life or death.

Or imagine a general fighting a battle. He is told by his spies that the enemy is almost out of ammunition; he decides to mount an immediate attack, before new supplies can reach his opponents. If the spies’ report is true, he will win the battle easily. If they made it all up and it’s false, he might be heavily defeated. Does truth make a difference? Yes – because it leads to right action. This is why intelligence and counter intelligence matter; if you can feed falsehoods to your enemy and they believe them, they may well make a serious blunder.

Unfortunately, this strategy to deceive and confuse is now being applied, not to the enemy, but within our society. We should be friends speaking the truth to one another, but much of the untruth flying around these days seems deliberate and causes serious difficulty for all of us. It’s become a bad habit. Who should I believe? Which ‘facts’ can I depend upon? How can I check? How should we deal with this difficulty? Here are some suggestions.

Dealing with it

  • Be sceptical of assertions – in other words, ask people for evidence
  • Don’t accept claims without supporting evidence
  • Remember that lots of people saying something doesn’t make it more true
  • Use fact checking websites
  • Beware of false claims presented as evidence
  • Treat people with respect and kindness even if they are making false claims
  • Avoid shouting matches, loudness doesn’t prove anything.

So what is the take away message here? We can all make a difference for better or worse. Search for the truth in every situation, look for evidence, listen to what people say but don’t accept anything without evidence of some kind (this might be evidence about the claims being made or it might be evidence that the person making the claims is reliable and usually speaks the truth). Then base any decisions or choices on the truth, never on claims you know to be false. Never deliberately mislead others (unless you are a general fighting a war). And always bear in mind that people with an agenda may sometimes behave like an enemy general. They may see you as the enemy and will misinform you if they think it will help them in some way. The world is a wonderful place, but it can also be a deceptive and dangerous place. Go in peace, but go very carefully!

Let’s base our lives on what is true, and not on what is false. Even though it’s sometimes hard to tell what is, or is not, true – it’s always worth making the attempt. And let’s remember that truth will never let us down. Untruth is just as reliable – it will always let us down in the end. No wonder Jesus said. ‘The truth will set you free’ (John 8:32). He was talking particularly about spiritual truth, but it’s a valid statement for truth in general. And let’s also bear in mind that science is a search for truth, and all the technology we depend on every day works only because it stands on that foundation of truth.

Whether we turn to the spiritual or the physical realm, we can only rely upon what is true. Truth is a thing of beauty, but deceit is ugly beyond measure. Choose beauty. Choose the light. Choose truth!

See also

Does the Truth Matter – Psychology Today
Fact checking websites – Wikipedia
Truth – Bible Gateway
Truth – Wikipedia