Friday, September 23, 2011

Our Yellowstone YouTube Videos

Recently Julianna, myself and Julianna's  brother George visited Yellowstone National Park. Here are three videos that Julianna took with our camera. I finally figured out how to turn them into YouTube videos and upload them onto this post.


                                                     Above is Mammoth Hot Springs. Mammoth Hot Springs has limestone terrace formations. The colours are beautiful, and are created by micro-organisms.


                                         Above is Old Faithful. The timing was perfect for us to see Old Faithful erupt. Hope you enjoy it. The wonders of creation, breath-taking! Old Faithful erupts about 120 feet into the air approximately every 90 minutes. I like how our video captures the different stages of the eruption.

                                      
                                       Above is Castle Geyser. Castle Geyser was erupting at the same time as Old Faithful, so we were unable to see it in the early peak stage.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Weird news from Sweden

[The following news item was published in our local paper today, The Medicine Hat News, Friday, September 9, 2011, p. C8. The humorous story is most welcome, and serves as a counterpoint to the more somber nature of this weekend, especially Sunday for many in the U.S.A. and around the globe, as we remember the horrific, evil events of 9/11, ten years ago. May the LORD of heaven and earth have mercy on us all and help us all to prevent such a disaster from happening again. Dim Lamp]

'Drunk' moose all tangled up

STOCKHOLM, Sweden
A seemingly intoxicated moose has been discovered entangled in an apple tree by a stunned Swede.
   Per Johannsson says he heard a roar from his vacationing neighbour's garden in southwestern Sweden late Tuesday and went to have a look. There, he found a female moose kicking about in the tree. The animal was likely drunk from eating fermented apples.
   With the help of police and rescue services, the 45-year-old Johannsson later managed to set the moose free in part by sawing off tree branches.
   But the animal appeared confused and wandered into Johannsson's garden, where she was still resting Thursday.
   Other neighbours in the Goteborg suburb Saro had seen the animal sneaking around the area for days. Johannsson said the moose appeared to be sick, drunk or "half-stupid."

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Frederick Buechner Quote

[Frederick Buechner has been, and still is, one of the most gifted preachers of our time. He has an ingenious way of wordsmithing his sermons. Here is an excerpt from one he preached on the occasion of the 250th birthday of Princeton University, based on Mark 4:35-41, titled: "A 250th Birthday Prayer." Dim Lamp]
   Keep going, Jesus says, because to keep going is to keep living and to stop going is to stop living in any way that much matters. "Let us go across to the other side," he says, though who knows how far the other side is or what awaits us when we get there, if anything awaits us at all. And go bravely because if we are the boat and the storm and the fishermen in their helplessness, we are also, we have in us also, the holy one asleep in the stern with a pillow under his head whose presence gives us hope and courage.
   I think there is a holiness that sleeps in the heart of all of us even when we do not know its name or seek to know it. I think that, however dimly, we have all of us glimpsed that holiness especially at those moments when we were wiser or braver or more loving than left to ourselves we know how to be, at those moments when we are overwhelmed by the joy of life and the tragedy of life and the indestructible beauty and holiness of life that lie deeper than either. I think that just our longing for it, our listening for it, can stir that holiness to life within us.