1,000 posts!

This is my 1,000th post.

Thanks, readers, however sporadic or faithful!

The hardest thing about blogging is having something to say that's worth reading.

Whoops! Wrong.

It's getting people to read what you have said. You have made both a lot easier, and I haven't always posted something worth reading, by a long shot.

If you have time on your hands, I suggest that you look at one or more of the 17 "Significant posts," just to the right of this. I consider such matters as what the church prayed for in the New Testament, what makes a novel Christian, the Narnia books, our fascination with photography, origins, the Bible and science, and things I'm thankful for.

The first post was nearly three and a half years ago.

Thanks to God for the ability and facilities needed to do this.

Thanks for reading.

And God created neutrons

I don't really know why God created neutrons, but I'm going to muse about this matter. Neutrons are one of the sub-atomic particles we first discovered. They were found to exist in the nucleus of most atoms.

Neutrons are one of (we think) a veritable "zoo" of subatomic particles. We now believe that neutrons are made up of three smaller quarks. Even though they are not considered to be fundamental (that is, basic building blocks, which cannot be broken down), the Wikipedia article on neutrons still lists them, with protons, as being one of the two building blocks of an atomic nucleus. They have no electrical charge, so do not interact with other particles in some of the ways that charged particles do. Why, then, did God make these anonymous entities? Obviously, we can only speculate about this, but I shall do so.

I guess that the main reason God made neutrons is that they make it possible for atomic nuclei to exist. (Except for the most common isotope of Hydrogen, Hydrogen1, which has no neutrons in its nucleus, just a proton.) Why do I say this? In the first place, atomic nuclei are extremely small. The Wikipedia article that is linked to earlier in this paragraph tells us that such nuclei are about 1/100,000 the size of the atom itself. Suppose that you were shrunk to 1/100,000 of your current size. You would be almost invisible to the naked eye. The nucleus is not only very small, but is extremely dense, roughly 10,000,000,000,000,000 kilograms per cubic meter. (A cubic meter of water would have a mass of about 1,000 kilograms.) The nucleus is packed! Or, in other words, you and I are mostly space, because most of an atom is basically empty, except for the tiny nucleus, and we are made of atoms. It's no wonder that some sub-atomic particles can pass right through us without hitting anything!

Not only is a nucleus dense, but electrical charges are concentrated there. Each proton has a single positive charge. All atoms, except for Hydrogen, have more than one proton. That means that from 2 to 92 positive charges are jammed into an exceedingly tiny volume. Like charges repel each other. So how is it possible that these protons can exist together in the nucleus? It isn't easy, but the presence of neutrons seems to make that possible. In other words, there is a force that holds the nucleus together, and it is stronger than the electrical repulsion forces that would break it apart.

If there were only one proton in all atomic nuclei, the only type of atom would be Hydrogen. As fine as these are, and as important, the complexity of matter, especially living matter, would be impossible if there weren't many types of atoms, not just one. Suppose you had to prepare a blog post, a poem, or a business document, with no letters but an h! Written communication would be impossible.

Without neutrons, you wouldn't be here. The hereditary information that came from your parents couldn't have existed, in the form of DNA. Without neutrons, your life would be dull and dry, assuming you somehow existed as you do now without them. There would be no flavor molecules, no sugars, no caffeine. There would be no semiconductors, no computers. No musical instruments, no paintings, no books, no flowers. Nothing but a cloud of Hydrogen.

I'm thankful for neutrons.

I don't understand everything about nuclear physics, by a long shot. For more detail on these topics, check the links in this post.

Thanks for reading.

Grandson Number two

Grandson Number two arrived on January 29th. He seems to be doing fine, but needs a little help with his breathing, so far. Here he is, with his father's hand touching him:





For a 20-second video, showing much the same thing, except that his chest is moving, go here.

We thank God for this event, and the things that led up to it, and that will follow.

Thanks for reading.

I'm thankful for vibration

I'm thankful for vibration. Why?

Here's why. Vibration makes it possible for waves to exist. Something vibrates up and down, or back and forth, or around and round, and a wave is created. So who cares?

Waves are really important. If you live near the ocean, or any other large body of water, waves can kill you, or help transport you, or bring things to you, or give you occasion for recreation. That's one sort of wave, and it is, I believe not nearly as important as some other kinds of waves.

The most important kind of wave is electromagnetic. I have posted on this type of wave in the past, and tried to indicate why I (and you) should be grateful for its existence. Let me just indicate some reasons why I'm thankful for electromagnetic waves, in brief. Without them, there would be no light, and we couldn't see. Our appreciation of beauty would be much diminished. Without them, I wouldn't be able to listen to a radio, or watch television, or connect, through our wireless router, to the Internet, or through our cell phone, to other people. Without them the sun's energy would not reach the earth, and power photosynthesis, the water cycle, and keep us from freezing solid.

Another kind of wave is sound waves. (Many of the principles that apply to electromagnetic waves also apply to sound and other mechanical waves, but there are significant differences.) Without sound, I couldn't hear voices or music or various kinds of signals and warnings. I love to hear music and other sounds. God must, too. In Job 38:4-7, Job is told that, at the creation of the earth, heavenly beings shouted and sung! In Revelation 5:6-14, we are told that, when Christ is honored in heaven, heavenly beings, and humans, will shout and sing! (I recognize that it is possible, perhaps even likely, that neither of these passages are meant to be taken absolutely literally. But they mean something. I believe that God likes sound, including music. After all, He designed the universe so that mechanical waves would make them possible.

I have posted about other things I am thankful for, probably including vibrations, at other times. See here and here for links to these posts.

I'm also grateful for readers like you. Thanks!

Dare I say it? I'm thankful for carbohydrates

I'm thankful for carbohydrates! I know, carbohydrates have gotten a rather bad reputation. There have been fashionable diets that tried to eliminate them. In fact, this Wikipedia article on carbohydrates says that they are not absolutely needed in our diet -- we can get the energy and nutrients we need entirely from other sources. So why be thankful for carbohydrates?

Well, for one thing, I like sugar and sweet things.

For another, much more important reason, carbohydrates are the first usable food products of the processes that make up photosynthesis, the amazing, and absolutely essential activity that turns water, carbon dioxide, and light into food. Carbohydrates are also turned into almost every other organic molecule in living things, by metabolism. In other words, without carbohydrates, life as we know it would be impossible.

I'm thankful for them.

I have posted about other things I am thankful for, probably including carbohydrates, at other times. See here and here for links to these posts.

I'm also thankful to you, my reader!

I'm thankful for fantastic literature

I'm thankful for fantastic literature. I enjoy it. It speaks to me. It speaks to other people, too:

Best of all, fantasy novels are almost always about great heroes, which I see as illustrative of our Lord, the greatest hero of all. Courage, confidence, humility, self-sacrifice, virtue, perseverance, love—the qualities of a hero reflect our Lord’s character. They are also the qualities to which we ourselves should all aspire since we have been designed by God to be heroes just like Him in the unseen battle in which we fight. Especially significant to me is the fact that being a hero always exacts a price. Karen Hancock, "Why I Read Fantasy," Speculative Faith Blog, November 1, 2006.

As is my custom, I searched the Bible for an answer and found that Jesus taught using stories—but not just any old stories. Some clearly contained elements of fantasy. I read about a camel passing through the eye of a needle, an impossible event without God's miraculous intervention. Much of the story of the rich man and Lazarus couldn't possibly happen in the world Jesus' hearers knew, for they had never seen the afterlife dimension that Jesus described. These stories fall squarely into the realm of fantasy—stories that can't happen in our world without some kind of supernatural cause, in these cases, God's power.

And Jesus made fantasy stories come true. He made a coin appear in the mouth of a fish. A fig tree withered at His command. He calmed a storm with a spoken word. He walked on water. Without His power, none of these events could ever occur. They are fantasy stories brought to life. And each one taught us a lesson we will never forget. Why? Because fantasy brands images on our minds that cannot be erased. As we recall the images, we remember the lessons behind the amazing pictures. Fantasy creates indelible portraits of God's wondrous truths.

Jesus knew how our minds work, so he taught using fantasy elements in His stories. With such a powerful, authoritative fantasy trail-blazer leading the way, it seemed clear that I should simply follow. Bryan Davis, "Why Fantasy, Part 1" Speculative Faith Blog, Aug 23, 2006

Fantastic literature caught my imagination early. I fell down the rabbit hole with Alice. I wandered Barsoom, which we call Mars, with John Carter. I found authors who have stuck with me, and I with them. I discovered The Fellowship of the Ring in the stacks of the library of what is now the University of Wisconsin, Superior, while I was a student, working in that library. The Narnia books, by C. S. Lewis, discovered me, while I was a graduate student, wandering around the library of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, looking for something to read. (One of those books told me that there aren't any accidents.)

I was entertained, certainly. I escaped, for sure. But I have also learned about heroism, and endurance, and battling evil, and the perils of tinkering with what you shouldn't. I learned that there is another reality, more real than what appears to our eyes. I learned something of the power of the imagination. I learned, from some of my favorite authors, about human limits, too. Even Tolkien and Lewis seemed to leave some gaps in their imagined worlds. Only One author can create a consistent universe that really works.

I am thankful for fantastic literature, and for being made in the image of a God who imagines all possible things, so that I, too, can use my imagination, and profit from the imaginations of others.

Here is the last post of four, about my three favorite works of fantastic literature.

I am thankful for Rebecca, who suggested that November be a month of blogger gratitude emphasis. I previously posted musings about my gratitude for Carbon atoms, and for the electromagnetic spectrum, and for cell division, and, subsequently, about carbohydrates.

Thanks for reading.

I'm thankful for Cell Division

Cell Division doesn't get a lot of time on CNN. Perhaps it should. It's one of the many things that make life possible. We take it too much for granted. Without cell division, we wouldn't be here. How so? (I recently posted on the question of why we have cells in the first place.) We are made of many cells, all coming from one single one, the fertilized egg. We have become this closely linked community of cells by cell division.

Living things can be grouped into two groups, based on their cell type. Prokaryotes have no nucleus or chromosomes; eukaryotes have both. We are eukaryotes. Prokaryotes have mechanisms of cell division, but I'll stick with eukaryotes in this post.

During their science education, students are taught about mitosis and meiosis. These two related processes are ways of controlling the duplication and division of chromosomes. Chromosomes carry almost all of our genes, our heredity.

First, mitosis. Mitosis copies each chromosome as a cell divides. Therefore, when this happens, each of the two daughter cells get the same genetic material as the parent cell. (There are occasional mistakes in the copying process, but they are extremely rare.) That means that, for example, I have the same genes for eye color in each eye, and the same genes for skin color all over my body. (There are, of course, much more important genes than these, but we can see what these do directly.) I have, in fact, the same genes in almost every cell that were in the fertilized egg that gave rise to me, over six decades ago.

Since most of an organism's genes are important, and since some of them are expressed in every cell of that organism, mitosis is a critical process. We depend on it absolutely.

So what is meiosis? Meiosis is a process that does two critical things. It can be thought of as a variation on mitosis. What are these two things? One of them is to cut the number of chromosomes in half. The second is to introduce variety. Unlike mitosis, the daughter cells resulting from meiosis are not identical.

Why is cutting the chromosome number in half so important? Because two cells, a sperm and an egg, fuse to make a zygote, a fertilized egg. If they had the same chromosome number as the organisms that produced them, the chromosome number would double every generation, and reproduction would be impossible.

What about the variety? I received 23 chromosomes from my father, and 23 from my mother, in the sperm and the egg that went to form me, back when I was a fertilized egg, 23 pairs in all. (Human chromosomes are of 22 types, plus another pair that determine the the sex of the new organism.) As a male, I have had a group of cells, in my testes, where meiosis is happening all the time. I'm constantly producing new sperm. Each of these, because of the variety produced by meiosis, may be unique. Let's imagine that we have one of the little creatures by the tail, and can check on its chromosomes. Let's see. Chromosome 1 came from my dad. Chromosome 2 did, too. But chromosomes 3, 4, and 5 came from my mother, and 6 from my father. Over eight million possible combinations (2 to the 23rd power) are possible. And, it's more that that, much more than that. If I could really look at the chromosomes in a sperm, chromosome 2 might be seen to be mostly from my father, but with a little group of genes which came to me from my mother's chromosome 2. It seems possible that I never have, and never will, produce two sperm which are exactly alike. Meiosis also occurs in the production of the egg. The details are different, but the result is the same -- variety. I would expect that, of the hundreds of eggs my wife had or produced during her time of fertility, no two were alike. So, we have two daughters, alike in some ways, but certainly not identical. All because of meiosis. See "Why is there sex?"

This variety is not just good because it produces organisms, including humans, with various abilities and talents. It is good because it makes it possible for natural selection to work. The variety that means that, under some circumstances, some organisms are more fit than others, hence will have more offspring, is generated by accidents to the genetic material during these two processes of cell division, and by the reshuffling of the chromosomes that occurs during meiosis.

I believe, but cannot prove, that God planned these two processes, and made them happen in living things. I'm glad He did.

By the way, I'm also thankful for the Wikipedia, and for Rebecca, who suggesting that November be a month of blogger gratitude emphasis. I previously posted musings about my gratitude for Carbon atoms, and for the electromagnetic spectrum. I also thank you, my readers.

I'm thankful for the electromagnetic spectrum

I'm thankful for the electromagnetic spectrum. The what? you say. The electromagnetic spectrum. You read correctly.

So what is this? The electromagnetic spectrum is one of the types of energy. Instances of this type of energy can be thought of as little energy vibrations. They all belong to a family, as the different notes on a piano keyboard belong to one family. When sounded, each piano note is different, but they are all very much alike, sounds, vibrations of a certain type. (Sounds are a different sort of vibration from the vibrations of the electromagnetic spectrum). Sounds differ from one another in their frequency and wave length. High pitched sounds have a high frequency and a small wave length. Low pitched sounds have a low frequency and a large wave length. But all sounds are very similar, part of the same family. The members of the electromagnetic spectrum are like that. They are very similar, differing in their wave lengths and frequencies. (They, and sounds, also differ within the two families in the amount of energy they have.) The energy of the electromagnetic spectrum travels at the velocity of light, c in Einstein's famous e = m times c squared equation.

So why should I be thankful for the vibrations of the electromagnetic spectrum? Because I wouldn't be here without them, and neither would you. How so? Well, let me list some of the members of this large family. It includes, at the very small wave length, high frequency, and high energy end, gamma rays. Then, as wave length increases, and the frequency and energy decrease, X rays, ultraviolet rays, light, infrared/heat, and all of the radio waves. The range is enormous. Gamma rays have wave lengths on the order of a trillionth of a meter, and the radio waves can have lengths as long as 10 million meters. (We don't use those for ordinary communications.) As the Wikipedia article on this subject puts it: "In our universe the short wavelength limit is likely to be the Planck length, and the long wavelength limit is the size of the universe itself (see physical cosmology), though in principle the spectrum is infinite."

Okay, so there is a tremendous family of energy. So why is this important? There are many reasons, dear reader, but I will mention one as of most importance. Our earth gets most of its available energy from the sun, carried here by light, which is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. This light keeps the earth from being a frozen ball of rock and ice. It fuels photosynthesis, the process by which plants turn water and Carbon Dioxide into food. It powers the water cycle. It makes it possible for those of us blessed with eyesight to see the world around us. If there were no electromagnetic spectrum, we wouldn't be here. Because there is an electromagnetic spectrum, we are.

In case you are wondering how we can be heated by light, the energy in light is absorbed by matter. This absorption of energy heats things up. Objects so heated can, then, give off heat in other ways.

Besides the critical energy we get from the sun, I'd like to mention two other aspects of the electromagnetic spectrum. One is color (See also here). God didn't have to create light at all, I guess, and when He did, it didn't have to be colored. But it is. Without that part of the electromagnetic spectrum, light, we wouldn't see color in flowers, in babies, in great art, in the sky, the grass, and sidewalks. (I know -- some of us can't see color, and some can't see at all. But most of us can do both, and take it entirely too much for granted.) The second aspect is just that we (and many animals) can see at all. I take this too much for granted. There are many other reasons that the electromagnetic spectrum is important, in industry, in medicine, in communications, and elsewhere, but that will do.

Lest there be any doubt, I'm thankful to God for the electromagnetic spectrum. Although I can't prove it, I believe that God designed the universe to include it, and I'm glad He did.

Here's a post on Biblical references to light.

By the way, I'm also thankful for the Wikipedia, and for Rebecca, who suggesting that November be a month of blogger gratitude emphasis. I also thank you, my readers. I am posting this on November 23, 2006, Thanksgiving Day in the United States. For what it's worth, Rebecca is a Canadian. Here is another post expressing my gratitude for a number of things, here's one, expressing my gratitude for cell division, and here is one expressing my gratitude for Carbon atoms.

I'm thankful for Carbon

In previous posts (see here for a link to them) I have mentioned various things that I am grateful for. I listed some chemical elements, including Carbon, but I want to devote a whole post to this subject.

Carbon is one of the approximately 100 types of matter -- the elements -- that make up the material world.

Why emphasize Carbon specially? Well, that's a good question. Life as we know of would not be possible without many, maybe even most, of all the elements, not just Carbon. But Carbon is special to life.

Suppose you had to invent life from scratch. You would need building blocks that would be readily available to living things, or life would have been too difficult. You would need building blocks that can be assembled into many complex structures, or the complexity of information that is necessary for life would not have been possible. Consider language and the alphabet -- to have the complexity of language information that we have, we must have the capacity to make complex structures, like words, sentences, and paragraphs, from assemblies of simple structures -- letters. Carbon is the basis of the complex molecules that make life possible. I know, they are also made of other things, such as Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Sulfur, and other chemical elements, but Carbon is the key. Why is that? It is because Carbon has two properties. One of these is that Carbon is readily available to living things. Carbon's atoms are light, compared to, say, those of Iron. Carbon Dioxide, therefore, is a light substance, which is gaseous under common conditions, thus readily available to the green plants that turn it into food in photosynthesis. If Carbon were heavier, this could not happen.

The other property is that Carbon, with its six electrons, will readily form covalent bonds with four other atoms, including other atoms of Carbon, all at the same time. Huh? What does that mean? Consider our hands. Most of us have two. We could hold hands with two other people at the same time (or with one person, holding both hands). This makes it theoretically possible to make straight chains of people holding hands. Such chains could be very long, but they wouldn't be especially complex. They would be one-dimensional. Now, suppose we had four hands. We could make two-dimensional structures (or three-dimensional, if some of us would stand on ladders or get down in holes) much more complicated than straight chains of people. We could make complicated structures, indeed, in this way. If molecules could only be long, straight, chains, the complexity of the molecules we depend on, such as proteins and DNA, would be impossible. Both proteins and DNA have many Carbon atoms which are attached to three or four other atoms, making molecules with complex three-dimensional structures possible. The basic building blocks of proteins are amino acids. The heart of each amino acid is a Carbon atom, which is attached to four different groups of atoms at the same time.

I have inherited characteristics from my ancestors. I have had the privilege of passing on some of these characteristics to my daughters and my grandson. The information that makes this possible is carried in DNA molecules. The complexity of DNA makes this possible. DNA, too, has many Carbon atoms that are attached to four different groups of atoms at the same time.

It isn't just DNA and proteins. All the basic foods -- the substances we take in to give us energy -- are based on Carbon. Their smells and tastes are largely because of the Carbon-based molecules in their substance. So is their color. There are also human-made molecules that we have come to depend on, such as plastics, and man made fibers. Fuels are possible because of Carbon-based molecules. So are wood, paper, and many other things. We are, truly, Carbon-based life forms.

So, in this Thanksgiving season, I'm thankful to God for Carbon. Without it, I wouldn't be here, and you wouldn't be, either. I also thank Rebecca for suggesting that November be a month of blogger gratitude emphasis. I have also used this emphasis as an excuse to be thankful for the electromagnetic spectrum, and for cell division.

Thank you for reading.

Why I plan to vote

Veracity published an interesting post, in which she argues that Christians should not vote, if they are not convinced that one of the candidates is a good one. I'm not clear as to whether she thinks it's OK to vote for some offices, but not for others, but I suppose she would allow that.

As I say, it was interesting, but I'm not convinced. Her opening sentence was the oft-used phrase: "I don't think any candidate is good, so I will vote(choose) the lesser of two evils." She went on to argue, scripturally, that Christians should not do evil.

I don't think Christians should do evil, either, but I would like to respectfully differ with the common phrase. It doesn't state the situation correctly. Being able to vote in the first place is good. (See recent votes in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Many people, some of them Christians, believed strongly that the very opportunity to vote was a great good.) So good that voting for Jones, who agrees with me on, say, 2 out of 6 issues where I believe there is some sort of scriptural mandate, over Smith, who only agrees with me on one, means that voting for Jones is better than voting for Smith, and is good.

There is some scripture which backs up this position. Romans 13 says that "For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." (ESV, verse 1b) Surely Paul, who lived under a Roman dictatorship, knew something of the faults of that particular government. But he implied that there was some good in it, and, in fact, in all governments. I'm not sure what to make of some current regimes, such as the one in Sudan, related to this verse, but most governments, even if imperfect, even if they don't allow voting, have some good about them.

The Gettysburg Address, by perhaps the greatest President of the United States, says that that country's government is "of the people, by the people, for the people." The Declaration of Independence of the United States said that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . ." I know that neither the Gettysburg Address, nor the Declaration of Independence, have the force of Scripture, but they are important, and many would say that they are derived from Judeo-Christian ideals. If I am governed by persons and institutions that ultimately require my consent, if government is by the people, and if governments are ordained by God, then I think I have some duty to inform myself about the issues and the candidates, and vote.

Must I vote for every office? I would not say so. But I believe that most citizens have a duty to inform themselves about the issues and the candidates, and prayerfully vote for those they think most consistent with their best understanding of what is right.

Will Christians always make the right decisions when voting? Of course not. Those of us who have the privilege of voting on pastors or church officers sometimes find that it seems we, personally, or as a congregation, haven't made a good choice. But that does not excuse the duty to do our best.

Do Christians always have God's view of the issues, or the candidates? Again, no. I need no further evidence for this than that sincere Christians disagree about issues, or candidates. One thinks that abortion is the only issue. Another is concerned about world peace, or alleviating poverty, both scriptural principles.

Is voting the main way Christians should try to change the world? Certainly not. Christians should demonstrate Christlikeness, and create a hunger for it in the hearts of others. That's the best way to change the world. But it's not the only one.

For what it's worth, I plan to vote. I pray that I am voting as God wants me to, and that He will oversee the result.

Thanks for reading.

P. S., about half an hour later: This is another way of saying that I'm thankful that I can vote.

Thanks for 40 years

We have been married 40 years, as of today, and we thank God for the privilege.

Thanks!

I started this blog in late 2004. I want to offer thanks to a number of entities, and persons. Forgive me if you are not mentioned, or not mentioned enough.

Thanks, first of all, to God, who has given me the ability to do this. Thanks to my wife, who suggested that we purchase the laptop I'm using as we type this, and who has encouraged me in doing this.

Thanks to my readers, whether regular, occasional, or one-time, whether they comment, link to this blog, mention it in theirs, or just look. I want to thank family, especially my daughters and a nephew, a couple of dozen or more persons associated with Southern Wesleyan University, some other bloggers, an individual from our church, and, I think, some people who don't fit in any of those categories. (If some of you commented or e-mailed, I'd know more about who you are!) I'm sorry that I flit from category to category so much, but it's my blog. That makes me even more grateful to you.

Thanks to other bloggers. As some readers know from personal experience, finding time, motivation, resources, and something to write/show on a regular basis isn't a casual occupation. Finding an audience isn't easy. I want to especially thank Bonnie, Catez, Julana, Kathryn, Joe, Jeremy, Ken, Kevin, Marla, Michele, Perry, and Rebecca, who have provided material worth reading or looking at on a consistent basis. Most of you have commented or e-mailed me, in some cases a lot, and I treasure our friendship. We don't always agree (if we did, one of us would be redundant).

Thanks to the over two dozen bloggers currently, or recently, associated with Southern Wesleyan University. Whether you are telling about your visits to your grandmother, how your sister plays music you can't stand, surviving the ice storm, recovering from athletic injuries, new ways to use a computer, how your job is going, how your classes are going, showing photos, or describing how your pregnancy is progressing, I thank you. Seeing some of what you are up to has made retirement so much easier. There are some of you who ought to consider long-time blogging for the wider world, not just your friends, on a consistent basis. Not because I suggest it, though!

Thanks to Microsoft, Corel, ZoneAlarm, etc., and to Blogger, Bloglines, Google, Flickr. Thanks to the Christian Carnival. Thanks to Slate, MSN, Arts and Letters Daily, the Librarian's Internet Index, Nature, Carl Zimmer, The Panda's Thumb, Sports Illustrated, Harper's and SciTech Daily. Thanks to some relatives, and to motels, and other institutions that have provided web access.

God bless you all!

Thanks for reading.

Thanksgiving!

Psalm 100:1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

2 Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!

3 Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

5 For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. (ESV)

Doxology, by Thomas Ken, 1674

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Travel hiatus over

Thank God, we have returned home, although we enjoyed our trip immensely. (You can see some of the photographic highlights here.)

Two thoughts came to me while travelling.

One: We were not reluctant to talk to total strangers about interesting sights, and some of the strangers, like the man who told my wife that there was a gray whale in the ocean at a wayside where we stopped, felt the same way. Why am I so reluctant to tell others about Christ?

Two: We tried to get as close as possible to sights, driving, walking, or climbing so that we could see (and sometimes smell and hear). We drove several miles along mountain roads, with few barricades, to get a better view of Mount St. Helens, for example. Why am I so reluctant to get closer to God?

We thank our children, who gave us the impetus, did most of the planning and financing, for us to take a retirement trip to Washington and Oregon, where we had never been before. We also enjoyed staying with a daughter, her husband, and our grandson. I expect to say more about this trip in future posts, and also to comment on most or all of the books mentioned in the most recent post. I also note that I was, back over a month ago, planning to do some more things. Will probably get around to most of them. Thanks for reading this far!

Things I'm thankful for, 3

Taxes. (I'm not wanting to be thankful for more of them, but being taxed proves that someone thinks I have resources, and tax money provides some types of protection, infrastructure, and support for me, my family, and the community.)
Romans 13:7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. (ESV)

Spam. (I'm not asking for more, but getting spam proves that someone out there can communicate with me.)

Weeds. (I'm not asking for more, but having them proves that things can grow, and being able to spot them means that I have some measure of intelligence. Being able to get rid of them means that I have some manual dexterity or ingenuity.)

I'm also thankful for chocolate, jicama, bananas, grapes, melons, applesauce, carrots, and lots of other plant foods.

Ice cream, whipped topping, pudding and yogurt, frozen and otherwise.

TV (at least some of the time), basketball, good roads, dependable city workers that remove trash and recyclables, repair water lines, and the like.

Health insurance (would that everybody in the US had it!) and medical personnel that usually seem to really want to fix problems.

Teeth, air conditioning, grass, ball point pens, checks, church, and electricity.

Eyes, vision, my opthalmologist, and people who make bifocals.

And, of course, I am, I hope, not thankful in the abstract, but thankful to God.

See previous posts, here and here, on this subject. I'm trying to be thankful for some things that I take for granted too much. I am also thankful for you, the reader.

(Addendum, November 20, 2006) See also some future posts (Thanks, Blogger!) on my gratitude for over a year of blogging, and for Carbon atoms. I also thank Rebecca for suggesting that November be a month of blogger gratitude emphasis. Here's another post (by me) on something I'm thankful for.

Things I'm thankful for, 2

One thing I left out of the previous post on this topic is e-mail. I also took a lot for granted when I was thankful for Internet entities. I didn't mention electricity, insulators, conductors, semiconductors and chips, plastic, computers, phone lines, and the Internet itself. Nor did I list Copper, Silicon, Germanium, Gallium, and whatever other elements are used in making these things. Nor operating systems, device drivers, programming languages, HTML and its relatives, communication protocols, firewalls, modems and routers, browsers, FTP and other application programs, and the people who invented all of them, and who upgrade them. Nor anti-virus, anti-spam, and anti-spyware programs. My point was that we should be grateful for lots of things that most of us take for granted, and I illustrated my own point. I'll probably illustrate it again in this post.

How about some inventions and conveniences?
Paper, printing, photography, photocopying, binding, libraries, publishers, authors, illustrators, editors, printers, bookstores, and books
Translators and bible scholars
Ball point pens
Toilet paper, paper towels and napkins
Plates, bowls, cups and glasses, knives, forks and spoons, both permanent and disposable
Soap and detergents
Snail mail and package delivery, and the people who do it
Radio, especially NPR
Music, musical lnstruments, recording, lasers, speakers, CDs, records, tapes, and players
Windows--the kind you can see through
Electricity
Cable TV systems, and telephones that usually work, plus repair persons
TV stations and networks, at least some of the time

For all these things, I am thankful. Who to?
Well, to the creator, who made the original materials and also gave people the skills to do things with them. I take it that creativity is part of the "image of God" in humans.
To the people who had the ideas for these things, and those who carried them to completion.
For those who implement the ideas.

I'll probably do this again.

Things I'm thankful for, 1

The obvious:
You, whoever you are, who is reading any part of this posting--even if it's only to here. Thanks!
God, in all three persons
The Bible
My wife, daughters, sons-in-law, grandson, and other family
My church
The good job I have had
Freedom of worship, assembly, speech, press
The right to petition for redress of grievances
The right to be protected from unreasonable search and seizure
Good neighbors, friends, and students

Now, some Internet entities I am thankful for:
Blogger, Bloglines, Google, MSN, and Earthlink (These all have the obvious URL--www.whatever.com, and, if you got this far, you probably know all this already.)
Flickr--same deal on the URL. My page is here.
Yahoo Yellow Pages (Here's the top-level page for Port Angeles, Washington state.)
The Wikipedia
Project Gutenberg (For instance, May 25th publications include The American Missionary, Volume 49, No. 3, March, 1895, apparently a publication of the Congregational Church, mostly about the work among Indians and African-Americans, and The Book of Mormon, in case anyone is looking for a digital edition.)
The ESV Bible's RSS feed
Arts & Letters Daily
ArtsJournal
Christianity Today Online

Some chemicals:
Oxygen
Water
Chlorophyll
DNA, and all the necessary forms of RNA
Amino Acids
ATP
Carbon, Nitrogen, Sulfur, Potassium, Phosphorus, Hydrogen, Magnesium, Calcium, Iron, Copper, Manganese, Zinc, Molybdenum and any other elements essential to my life
Digestive enzymes
Vitamins
Neurotransmitters
Hemoglobin
NADP and NADPH

People who do things:
Our honest auto mechanic
Grocery cashiers, waitresses, nurses, policemen and firemen
Teachers and librarians
The people who bring the news, and all the web entities listed above, to me

Will probably do this again

* * * *

Thanks, younger daughter (and who makes at least one reader) for telling me that I messed up a URL.