Month: September 2018

Ever wonder what a totally carefree existence would be like? No relationship, health, financial, societal, national or world peace worries or concerns. Such a utopian Shangri-La is but a hopeful myth in today’s troubled world. Oftimes, circumstances arise which make Scripture’s challenge, “This is the day the Lord hath mad, we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps.118:24) a seemingly impossible charge to fulfill. Then, last week at sea on Resurrection Bay, I caught a glimpse of this verse being demonstrated among creation’s wild and free creatures . . . no worries or cares, just pure, uninhibited rejoicing and relaxation in “…the day the Lord hath made…”. Such awaits us in glory someday . . . “…rejoice and be glad in it…”  

Mountain peaks frosted in ‘Termination dust’; ptarmigan and snowshoe hares replacing brown wardrobes with white; Canadian geese ‘V’ formations  above; forest floors carpeted in aspen’s gold below; alpine tundra flecked with brilliant bearberry red . . . all harbingers of The Last Frontier’s all too brief fall surrendering to another all too long winter.

Denali National Park displays fall’s farewell signatures in matchless fashion.  Here’s but a few reminding us that life is best measured not by the number of breaths we take, but those that take our breath away . . .  they left me breathless and blessed.

 

Each fall I stand streamside witnessing a phenomenon of endurance, navigation, and sacrifice that speaks of our Maker’s incomprehensible omniscience.  Documented and explained by science, the divine mystery of the ‘omni’ factor remains inexplicable.  After years of nomadic wandering the oceans, fraught with perilous predators, salmon return to the exact site where they began life to end theirs, and birth a new generation.

How do these ‘lower’ life forms remember their way back home, when this ‘higher’ one is often unable remember where he parked the car?  Science ascribes it to eons of evolution.  I lack that measure of faith . . . and remain content to credit it to the stroke of the Creator’s hand.

Female sockeye salmon constructing a red (nest) with her tail.  Male waiting to fertilize eggs with his milt