Daily Photo Parable

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, September 14, 2025

I found this fault on the neighborhood trail we walk twice a day. At least that’s what I’m calling it. You might call it a crack in the dirt, but that doesn’t sound as poetic – plus, I’m from earthquake country, so it makes me think of a fault.

I remember feeling three earthquakes that hit the headlines while I was growing up in Juneau, Alaska. The largest one, on the evening of March 27, 1964, registered 9.2 and lasted a very long four minutes and thirty-eight seconds. I didn’t know until I checked on its size and duration that it’s the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in North America.

What I do know is that it was Good Friday and my father’s birthday, and the vase of daffodils we bought to celebrate him started dancing around on the dining room table, while the light above swung back and forth. We were far from the epicenter, but kept anxious vigil through the night until we heard from relatives who lived much closer to it.

Geologists calculated that six hundred miles of fault ruptured and moved up to sixty feet, releasing about 500 years of stress buildup.

So I am wary of faults.

I am wary of faultfinding, too, especially if the finder is pointing the finger at me. Have you ever had the accusation hurled at you, “It’s all your fault!” Not pleasant. Faultfinding can cause stress buildup and ruptured relationships!

And yes, this reminds me of Jesus.

Then Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests, the rulers, and the people, said to them, “You have brought this Man to me, as one who misleads the people. And indeed, having examined Him in your presence, I have found no fault in this Man concerning those things of which you accuse Him; no, neither did Herod, for I sent you back to him; and indeed nothing deserving of death has been done by Him. I will therefore chastise Him and release Him” (for it was necessary for him to release one to them at the feast).

And they all cried out at once, saying, “Away with this Man, and release to us Barabbas”—who had been thrown into prison for a certain rebellion made in the city, and for murder.

Pilate, therefore, wishing to release Jesus, again called out to them. But they shouted, saying, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!”

Then he said to them the third time, “Why, what evil has He done? I have found no reason for death in Him. I will therefore chastise Him and let Him go.”

But they were insistent, demanding with loud voices that He be crucified. And the voices of these men and of the chief priests prevailed. So Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they requested. And he released to them the one they requested, who for rebellion and murder had been thrown into prison; but he delivered Jesus to their will. (Luke 23:13-25 NKJV)

And so the faultless, sinless Son of God staggered and crawled up the hill to Calvary and literally laid down His life for us, choosing to die so we could choose to live.

That is why Paul can assure us:

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1 – 2)

He finds no fault in us!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love . . . to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:3 – 4,6)

We are accepted and blessed and without blame before Him!

And just like Jesus, we are His beloved.

Praise be to the One who loved us first!

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, September 13, 2025

Halfway through last week, as I was studying Lamentations 3 to prepare for a sermon, I had the passage up on my laptop screen. Suddenly (as you see in the photo above), my mouse highlighted the clause “and therefore I have hope.”

I’ve notice in recent months that artificial intelligence (AI) has been getting more assertive. No longer, if you need it, do you have to go and get it. Nowadays it trails you around like a puppy or a two-year-old, trying to get your attention, begging you to let it help you.

As soon as the mouse had highlighted “and therefore I have hope,” the AI box popped up. I discovered that it was offering me a paraphrase: “Consequently, I remain optimistic.”

Good try, A-I! (This is spoken sarcastically.) As someone who for decades has been perfectly capable of choosing and arranging my own words, this annoyed me. And the words I’d highlighted actually aren’t mine – they’re Bible words. And even though “consequently, I remain optimistic” is indeed an approximate paraphrase, I prefer the original.

Why? For one thing, “Therefore I have hope” has just five syllables, while the machine-generated paraphrase has eleven. The original has words of one syllable, except for “therefore,” while the paraphrase has two words (the first and the last) which each have four syllables. “Consequently, I remain optimistic” sounds like what a company CEO might write in the introduction to the annual report.

Anyway, that’s my rant for today. But I guess the sober truth behind it is that we need to take the Bible as it reads. Sure, there’s a whole spectrum of translations out there, and all have some good qualities. But there are ways you and I can stay as close to the original as possible.

One way is to read from three or four literal translations. The ones I use are the New King James, the New International Version, the English Standard Version, and the New Revised Standard Version. These four will give you solid translations. Read them all, and you’ll gradually get the “feel” for what’s happening in the original Hebrew or Greek. Then you can check out other, looser translations, but you’ll always want to verify them against the NKJV, the NIV, the ESV and the NRSV.

To read or review just what the Bible has to say about its own important, check out the following link. Once you’re there, keep scrolling down for lots of fascinating Scripture facts.

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

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
Friday, September 12, 2025

Driving about the metropolis in recent years, I’ve noticed something interesting, mostly as I’m waiting for the light to change at an intersection. I’ll see huge metal boxes like the ones in the photo above. I’m not exactly sure what they contain, but it’s most likely electrical switches or maybe phone or internet equipment. Normally these boxes are gray in color, or a muted green, presumably to not draw too much attention to themselves.

The problem, of course, is that once an anarchistic spray-painter catches sight of such a box, he or she sees it as a virgin canvas, and in the dead of night will create an eye-catching but largely indecipherable string of letters, or maybe a gang hieroglyphic.

But one day, somebody got a great idea: put real art, beautiful art, on these boxes. And it seems to be working. Because in my purely non-research-based personal opinion, there seem to be at least two basic kinds of freelance public artist. The first is the gang-graffiti sprayer, and no doubt no piece of art would deter such a person from leaving their signal. But the second kind seems to be the people who want to do real art. These people love beauty, and will produce it if provided with enough spray paint, and time, and side-of-the-building canvases.

What’s interesting to me is that I have never once seen gang graffiti sprayed on one of these art-covered boxes. The spray-paint artist, observing it, probably shrinks back from defacing something somebody put a lot of careful work into it. And even the gang-tagger keeps the spray can in the backpack and moves along. This is a kind of “art war,” where the beautiful (in most cases) drives the ugly away.

The Bible has quite a bit to say, both through words and through demonstration, how the light of God’s presence, and the power of His love, keep the opposite at bay. Check out the two links below.

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

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

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Russell Jurgensen
Wednesday, September 11, 2025

This collection of Lego people was selected by my granddaughter who had fun putting them in the electronics kit I was trying to show her. The people were more interesting than the electronics demonstration. Although for a couple minutes she did enjoy the AM radio we made. She wanted me to save the people for the next time she visited. So I took this picture to remember which ones to save.

Now that I look at the people closer, I see they make a nice little family. It reminds me about how God promises to be with us.

Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
Isaiah 46:4

Let’s remember God’s love and faithfulness as we go forward this week.

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Darren Milam
Wednesday, September 10, 2025

A few things came to mind when I captured this image. First, I presume most of us have seen the motivational picture of a kitten hanging onto the end of a rope with only one of its tiny claws – the motivation message says “Hold On!” The second thought I had was, if this was a game of tic-tac-toe, the X’s (or pigeons) would have won.

For the purpose of this photo parable, I’ll concentrate on the former. To provide a bit more context, this image was taken in the city of Luzern (or Lucerne), Switzerland. The roof you see is from the famous covered bridge named, Kapellbrucke, or Chapel Bridge (oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe). As you can see, I’ve zoomed in on the three fowl, standing in their diagonal line. What you may not be able to see, is the pitch of the roof from where they are glancing over in your direction.

For a couple of summers, when I was in highschool, I worked in the roofing industry. It’s hard work, and whenever we got a job that was steeper than the common 4/12 pitch (rise/run = 4 inches of rise, in 12 inches of run), it was even more difficult. I do have to use the term “common” loosely, as roof pitches are based on several factors such as design, weather, etc. That said, during the summers I worked on roofs, a 4/12 pitch was very easy to maneuver on. When you get into the ranges of 10/12 or 12/12, it’s a whole different story.

Back to my diagonal feathered friends, this roof (venturing a guess) was in the 10/12 or steeper range. The roof shakes are crafted from stone and (as you can see) have gathered moss and lichen. All that said, I would say it’s not the easiest to stand on. In fact, I wanted to tell my friends to “Hang On!”

No matter your specific circumstance in life, there are moments where all you can do is hang on. In Jeremiah 29, God is specifically speaking to those that had been exiled and taken from Jerusalem to Babylon. At that moment, they were just hanging on. I believe the same promise found in verses 11-14 can be for us as well:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

Photo and Commentary (c)2025 by Robert Howson
Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Coming across the word monarch I have two general responses. Depending upon the situation my mind conjures up either an image of Buckingham Palace, Queen Elizabeth, and the changing of the guard, or a black and orange butterfly flitting over a meadow. But recently I became aware of a third option which has caught my attention. A family of birds known as Monarch Flycatchers, or simply Monarchs, is found across sub-Saharan Africa, into south-east Asia, including Australia and a number of Pacific islands. The Shining Flycatcher is just one of these long-tailed songbirds.

The species is dimorphic, which means the male and the female look quite different. The male is attired entirely in an iridescent blue-black wardrobe, while the female you see pictured here, adds chestnut and white to complete its appearance. In spite of its name, it prefers shady places, especially streamside vegetation, from which it ventures out to capture flying insects. It seems the male is shyer than the female, which may explain why I have her portrait and not his.

While we shouldn’t be surprised that “monarch” presents us with a variety of options, it’s almost expected that Paul would employ the term in a political context. In one of his most superlative statements, he makes sure to include this term which encompasses all that includes human power and authority. “I have become absolutely convinced that neither death nor life, neither messenger of Heaven nor monarch of earth, neither what happens today nor what may happen tomorrow, neither a power from on high nor a power from below, nor anything else in God’s whole world has any power to separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 8:38-39 J.B. Phillips New Testament) If Paul had the words to widen the inclusiveness of God’s love for us, I’m sure he would have done so. But his comprehensive statement covers the two areas that constrain all of us, time and space. In a practical sense, that means there is absolutely nothing that I can do that would make God love me any more, or any less.

Photo ©2010 and Commentary ©2025 by Chuck Davis
Monday, September 8, 2025

This Tiger Lily invokes several memories: The Bare Mountain trail (where the photo was taken), Springtime (the time of year that these plants bloom), and Butterflies (I photographed several fritillaries on that same day). But my strongest are memories of my mother.

One of my earliest memories is of my mother pointing out the tiger lilies that we saw growing near my childhood home. They were her favorite wildflowers. One memory generates another memory, which in turn leads to another and another. As I write this, a lifetime of memories comes flooding in, too many to share in this space. My mother is no longer generating new memories, but one day soon I expect to have more, unendingly more.

Until then, God’s charge to us: “Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee” (Deuteronomy 32:7 KJV).

I hope that your memories are like mine, good ones, as beautiful as this lily.