Sunspots 762

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to

someone else:

Christianity: An article in BioLogos discusses the relationship between Down Syndrome and the image of God.

Education: Grammarphobia on the use of shrink, shrank and shrunk.

Health: The Scientist reports that smelling natural surroundings appears to relieve stress.

The Scientist also reports that the effects of natural surroundings may be due, at least in part, to exercise.

Politics: FiveThirtyEight says that the majority of poll respondents believe that there is sufficient evidence to remove President Trump from office. But that is unlikely to happen, at least until the election of this year.

FiveThirtyEight also discusses the divisions about President Trump's actions in the Middle East, within the two major parties. (Not between, within!)

President Trump says that the US will target some Iranian cultural sites. NPR reports on how striking them would be illegal.

Science: Gizmodo, and other outlets, report that puffins use a tool to scratch themselves.

NPR reports on why some knots hold better than others.

Listverse tells us some common interesting misconceptions about colors.

Thanks for looking!
The graphic used in these posts is from NASA, hence, it is free to use like this.

God's sense of smell, and yours

A post on BioLogos discusses how smell should be important in worship, and points out that the Bible talks as if God has a sense of smell, and likes some of the things he smells, and doesn't like others. I'd never thought much about these subjects. Due to a medical procedure, I have very little sense of smell, or so I'm told, but you probably have a normal ability to distinguish smells, and haven't thought much, or any, about how that sense may affect worship.

Thanks for reading. Smell good.

Thurber, Bunyan, Tolkien and MacDonald on odors

From The White Deer, by James Thurber (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1945):
You'll know the woods when you are still a long way off by virtue of a fragrance you can never quite forget and never quite remember. (3)

From all the trees a sticky thickish liquid dripped and oozed and gave or rather lent the air a heavy sweetish fragrance, for the sweetish heavy fragrance died and rose and died again and rose and died and rose again. (50)

Yet hints come to me from the realm unknown;
Airs drift across the twilight border land,
Odoured with life; and as from some far strand
Sea-murmured, whispers to my heart are blown
That fill me with a joy I cannot speak,
Yea, from whose shadow words drop faint and weak:
Thee, God, I shadow in that region grand.
A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul, by George MacDonald (public domain, entry for May 29.)

Ned's eyes were white with wonder. "May I look at it, Dad?" he said. He took it with careful fingers and peered into the flowers. "The work is a marvel!" he said. "And, Dad, there is a scent in the bells: a scent that reminds me of, reminds me, well, of something I've forgotten." J. R. R. Tolkien, Smith of Wootton Major & Farmer Giles of Ham (New York: Ballantine, 1972), p. 49. Smith, the Dad, has brought home a marvelous flowering head from fairyland.

Were I to adopt the figurative language of Bunyan, I might date this letter from the Land Beulah, of which I have been for some weeks a happy inhabitant. The Celestial City is full in my view. Its glories have been upon me, its breezes fan me, its odours are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the River of Death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. Included in the on-line version, here, of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (public domain). This was not written by Bunyan, but in a letter from a Dr. Payson, near his death.

Thanks for reading!