Daily Photo Parable

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Russell Jurgensen
Thursday, May 8, 2025

This tractor is a little bigger than an average lawn mowing tractor but smaller than a typical farm tractor. It belongs to a class of garden tractors that are economically built and have a number of uses on a casual small farm. They can mow grass, pull wagons, and work with other attachments.

This tractor is showing its age and may be in need of an engine rebuild. But it is still loved by the family that owns it.

It reminds me that we don’t have to be the best, newest, or biggest to be useful. We just need a willing spirit.

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Whatever your challenges, don’t give up and hang in there. Things will look better tomorrow.

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Darren Milam
Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Recently, I was on a business trip to Costa Rica. Not the worst location for a business meeting. We did have a chance to get out and take a short tour of the area, specifically near the city of Cartago. We traveled up to the top of one of Costa Rica’s many volcanoes. This one was the active volcano, Irazu. I say it’s active, but thankfully it’s not as active as another Costa Rican volcano – Poas (actively erupting – even while I was in country). Irazu sits at just over 11,000 feet and is typically covered with clouds, but when it does clear, at that height you are able to see both the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans.

Unfortunately, on the day we visited, it was covered with clouds – for the most part. At one point, while I was walking around the crater, the visibility was less than 30 feet. The good news, eventually the clouds started to part and I was able to capture this image of this beautiful Gray Fox. It was a lucky moment to see this guy. At 11,000 feet, high up in the clouds, there are only a few animals that flourish at this altitude and temperatures. I was able to see a few hummingbirds but not much else. In this zone there are armadillos, owls, rabbits, and a few birds. This specific area is packed with volcanic rocks, ash and sand in and around the crater(s). Walk a few feet to the edge of the crater and you see the rim begin to come to life with a jungle-like forest.

It’s amazing how life continues to thrive, even in situations like this. Just think of what takes place when an eruption takes place – explosion of rocks, ash, lava, etc. Fast forward a few years, you have grass, trees, flowers, foxes – life continues. How is that possible? God, that’s how. Creation starts over when there is destruction. To me, that actually is a great example of the history of our planet. Take the flood for example – total destruction of Earth (at least the dry part) and then life started over. God can turn the switch on – the switch for life.

Seeing this fox, as well as the other flora and fauna, it was a great reminder of how God creates all things, including this beautiful creature. Thank you, God!

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Robert Howson
Tuesday, May 6, 2025

We look for parallels between our human experience and that which we find exhibited in the realm of natural history. At times we do so to justify our own actions, implying we have no choice about the matter so deeply engrained in our psyche are our natural tendencies. But we can also find examples that bring out the best in both ourselves and the natural world.

It has been correctly noted that youth tends to be much more liberal or open to change than age. Once, set in our ways, it is hard to change. The time-worn adage, “you can’t teach old dogs new tricks” bears this out. This is neither good nor bad, in and of itself; it simply is a reality.

The Red-shouldered Hawk, a medium-sized raptor, offers analogous behavior to our own social leanings. These hawks are most common in moist woodlands and along streams in the eastern part of the United States where they are generally short to moderate distance migrants. But when they do leave their more northerly nesting areas, it is the juveniles that precede the adults in their fall migration. In spring when they return, the order is reversed, with the adults arriving first and the younger birds following.

To make this analogy work, we must assume that the nesting grounds can be equated to the base line, the established norm. Is it surprising that the young are eager to fly south to explore new areas? We wouldn’t be presumptuous enough to condemn them for doing so. In the same way, it might be easy to understand why mature birds might be ready to return to an established nesting area where they can refurbish the nest they used the year before.

Photo ©2024 by Chuck Davis
Commentary ©2025 by Chuck Davis
Monday, May 5, 2025

This view of Chimney Rock in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness is only possible after a strenuous ascent along the Necklace Valley Trail. Vigorous “Off-Trail” scrambling eventually leads to the Tank Lakes and classic views.

On this day, the clouds and the setting sun laughed as they watched me try to capture the dynamic changes before all the light was gone.

Standing on the plateau, the peaks deceptively beckon to us. The landscape hides the cliff bands that drop 1600 feet to the intervening valley floor.

Our life is much the same, filled with peaks and valleys. In Exodus 32, we read about Moses meeting with the Creator God, a true mountaintop experience. Contrast that with the valley low he found as his family worshipped a god that they had created.

Without the valleys, there would be no mountains. Such a plain life that would be. God calls us to the mountaintops while placing the valleys in the way. Ascending according to His plan results in joy everlasting.

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, May 4, 2025

I’m fond of this little duck that we pass by a couple of times a day on the path to our neighborhood trail – at least it looks like a duck to me, with fluffs of greenery for wings. He makes me smile.

He started my musing on the word “duck.” One dictionary definition, “to lower the head or body suddenly: dodge,” is exactly what my husband needs to do on this part of our walk. If he isn’t on the alert, he’s been known to hit his head on an overhanging branch, or have his hat knocked off. He needs to duck!

But I’m glad he doesn’t resemble another definition of the word, “to evade a duty, question, or responsibility.” In all our years together, I haven’t seen him try to “duck out” of something, to evade or avoid what he needs to do.

Even though I usually go to bed feeling serene and thankful for the day I’ve experienced, sometimes I wake up with “day dread.” That may be wording it a bit strongly, but I often feel the need to brace for the day and the challenges it may bring me.

Knowing this melancholy tendency, many years ago I bought a large square sign that advises, in large letters, to “WAKE UP EVERY MORNING AS IF SOMETHING WONDERFUL IS ABOUT TO HAPPEN.” I positioned this sign on a bookshelf so that I see it last thing when I go to bed every night and first thing when I wake up every morning. And before I swing my legs out of bed and put feet to floor, I pray for that attitude of cheerful anticipation. I don’t want to succumb to the habit of wanting to “duck the day.”

If there was anyone who had reason to cower in a corner rather than stride out with confidence into the day, it was Jesus. I believe He moved serenely, day after day, from the cradle to the cross, not because He was a Superman or Supergod, but because He habitually spent enough time with His Father God to gain daily divine strength and wisdom and power and love to fit Him for every challenge the devil would throw at Him.

We see Him duck and dodge, evade and avoid, the devil’s relentless temptations to throw Him off track, and in doing so He never ducked His chosen mission to show us what God was truly like, and to die so that we could choose to live forever.

As we move out into this brand-new week, this gives us hope, not only for heaven ahead, but for His protection and provision for each day until He comes.

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, May 3, 2025

Earlier this week, just around the corner from our cul-de-sac, I noticed this fire hydrant. As you can see, over the years it has been adorned with various coats of paint. I’m assuming that the brown is the original color—maybe rusted metal. Then, if I’m analyzing correctly, came a layer of blue, and finally of white. But the white is rusted and cracked as well.

Aesthetically, this fireplug is not a thing of beauty. The most charitable thing you can say about it is that it has “personality.” But the most important question is, does it do what it’s supposed to do? It doesn’t seem to have been used much — I can’t notice any wrench-abrasions on the large nut at the top, which I assume is what the fire personnel would turn in order to release the water into a hose clamped onto the valve at the left. But I’m pretty certain that if water were needed, water would be quickly available.

When I was growing up, the church I attended was actually a one-room school classroom, with school desks pushed to the walls and cold gray folding chairs arranged for the pews. Later I attended a brand-new college church with an expensive organ and huge, contemporary stained glass windows. Still later, I had the opportunity to co-author a book with a Russian Adventist leader, who described humble house-church services in the Soviet Union, to which members traveled secretly every Sabbath morning, always alert for KGB infiltrators.

But each of these churches, scruffy or fancy, faithfully and abundantly provided the same “water” — the Water of Life. And that water was so precious and so satisfying that externals didn’t seem as important.

Jesus once got into a gentle theological debate with a woman who came to a well to get some water. He asked for a drink, and after a bit of back-and-forth, here’s what happened:

Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? . . . Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” — John 10:10 – 14 [NKJV]:

This life-giving “water,” of course, was salvation. Here are some more details:

https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/salvation

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
Friday, May 2, 2025

Within this past week, on post-breakfast walks in our neighborhood, I noticed two different approaches to back-yard fence maintenance.

The first you see in the photo above. The fence is old, and there are gaps between the boards, especially toward the right. And it seems as though the entire fence has become so alarmingly rickety that the homeowner has had to desperately patch it with horizontal boards as ratty as the originals.

Now, take a look at another backyard fence:

To me, this is fascinating. Obviously this is a brand-new fence, probably erected by a professional fence company. But what intrigues me is that in replacing his or her own fence (probably formerly as ratty as the other), this homeowner is taking a totally opposite view of what a fence is for. The ratty-fence owner in the top photo seems to have said, “Wow. My fence is falling down. I’ve got to fill in the holes so that nobody can see in, or squeeze in, to my property and privacy.”

The second owner seems to be saying, “Hey, I want my new fence to have a big window in it.” Quite frankly, I don’t know why. This opening is not a gate, but a window — to get through it you’d have to duck your shoulders and lift your legs. So why the window? Is it so people in the backyard can see out onto the rough and rustic and infrequently-traveled trail behind it? Is it an invitation to trail-walkers to look in? As my wife Shelley said, when I showed her this window this past Thursday, “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Since this is a Photo Parable, here comes the parable part. How open am I to the other people in my life? Am I self-centered, hunched down in my own cocoon, unwilling to open my heart to someone who might need a listening ear, or a prayer? Or am I willing to open a window so that I can see, or be seen, in ways that are eternally helpful?

Why not take a moment to review some Bible wisdom on friendship?

https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/friendship