Daily Photo Parable

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Maylan Schurch
Friday, May 24, 2024

A week ago this Friday on a morning walk, I noticed this little bunny in someone’s yard. After a double-take, I saw that the bunny’s companion was a lawn-sprinkler with a plastic skull on it!

Obviously, the skull has no meaning to the bunny. (Actually I myself am confused about why someone would use a skull to decorate a lawn sprinkler.) But the more I stare at this duo, the more disturbed I feel. The rabbit doesn’t fear the skull—he behaves as though it might be his brother, or at least an acquaintance. The skull does nothing but stand there and demo death, and if the bunny understood what it stands for, he or she would be repulsed by this acquaintance.

As a pastor for more than four decades, I have become quite familiar with death. I’ve spoken with people who are soon to die. I have been in rooms with people as they have passed away. I have conducted many funeral and memorial services, in churches and chapels and beside graves and in military shelters in a national cemetery where the fields are white with crosses.

But at each of those services I have read words from a Book whose attitude about death I know very well. And the words I read comfort me, and have comforted others who heard them.

It’s good to fully understand what the Bible says about this universal problem. And what it says is surprisingly upbeat and encouraging. Don’t believe me? Click the link just below:

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

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Russell Jurgensen
Thursday, May 23, 2024

At this time of year, there are a lot of flowers to photograph. I know they can be boring in a picture, and you really have to see the flowers in person to appreciate them. I hope you are finding a lot of flowers around you.

The place this picture was taken is at the Bellevue, SDA church — the same church that hosts this web site. The parking lot is just behind this display.

Another thing that is best experienced in real life rather than just reading is showing compassion in everyday things. If the most important commandments according to Jesus are to love God and love your neighbor, how can we apply this regularly?

It seems like many decisions could be analyzed in regard to what is the loving thing to do. Just like flowers, this approach can brighten many situations.

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Darren Milam
Wednesday, May 22, 2024

A recent trip back East, with a couple days in Boston, allowed for a few sightseeing adventures. Fully embracing the role of tourists, we had the opportunity to ride the Swans. After our lovely 15 mins of floating on the manmade pond in the Public Gardens, I captured this image. It appears both the swans and the “swan operator” were staring down at the same thing. I am unclear what was so fascinating down on the dock, or in the water – maybe a turtle was spotted, or a double check of the securing lines was needed. Either way, their gaze was fixated downward.

Sometimes, I feel life can get us looking downward as well. Of course, we all know where our viewing should be – upwards, fixated on our Savior. The song Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, was inspired by a verse found in Hebrews 12.

Verse 2 (NLV) Let us keep looking to Jesus. Our faith comes from Him and He is the One who makes it perfect. He did not give up when He had to suffer shame and die on a cross. He knew of the joy that would be His later. Now He is sitting at the right side of God.

What a great reminder, not only of what Jesus endured for us, but where our eyes should be focused — on Him. There are so many distractions in this world begging for your attention, asking for you to drift your gaze off and look downward. My prayer for all of us, is we are provided the strength to stay focused with our eyes securely locked onto the prize – upward, on Jesus.

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Robert Howson
Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Even in its brightest breeding plumage the Tennessee Warbler is not what you’d call a dynamically attired species. Cloaked in shades of gray and green, this common nesting species in the boreal forests of Eastern Canada becomes even less distinctive once it molts into its winter wardrobe. To me it then looks a great deal like the Warbling Vireo, a familiar resident across much of the United States. But the warbler’s bill is much longer and more pointed. The difference is in the details.

A few years back an interesting book came out titled Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and It’s All Small Stuff. I’m sure the author’s intent was noble, to encourage us to look at the big picture and not get bogged down in minutia, but what I find in Scripture is that details are very important to God, and therefore should be important to us as well. Leviticus 18:4-5 seems to confirm this idea: “You must obey only my laws, and you must carry them out in detail, for I am the Lord your God. If you obey them, you shall live. I am the Lord.” (NIV)

If I were designing aircraft, to slide over the details could prove to be fatal, and from a casual glance it seems like maybe God made one in the construction of this warbler. It’s the only North American passerine I know of that goes through its Prebasic molt where its flight feathers are replaced during its fall migration. This means it must cover long distances with less than ideal feathering for such. A miscalculation on the part of the Creator? Well, apparently not, for those Tennessee Warblers just seem to keep coming back each year. Our glimpse of creation is just that, a glimpse. As one ornithologist put it, “This merits further study.”

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Cheryl Boardman
Monday, May 20, 2024

I found this Lion’s Paw scallop shell in, of all places, an antique mall earlier this month. You apparently don’t need a beach to go shelling!

I think it’s pretty amazing and you can see how big it is compared to my hand. I also like the subtle colors on it.

I was at a rock and mineral show this past weekend and saw one that looked almost exactly the same and it was labeled as a fossil shell that was several million years old. As a young earth creationist, I have a major problem with the dating! And if the fossil shell is so much older, why does it look exactly the same?

What a wildly wonderful world, GOD!
You made it all, with Wisdom at your side,
made earth overflow with your wonderful creations.
Oh, look—the deep, wide sea,
brimming with fish past counting,
sardines and sharks and salmon.
Ships plow those waters,
and Leviathan, your pet dragon, romps in them.
All the creatures look expectantly to you
to give them their meals on time.
You come, and they gather around;
you open your hand and they eat from it.
If you turned your back,
they’d die in a minute—
Take back your Spirit and they die,
revert to original mud;
Send out your Spirit and they spring to life—
the whole countryside in bloom and blossom.
Psalm 104:24-30 (The Message)

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, May 19, 2024

It was a game we made up, which could very accurately be described as a word game. I would bring our big dictionary to my mother and we would take turns closing our eyes, ruffling through its pages, then stop and put a finger down on a random page.

We’d check to see if the word under that finger was a word we already knew, or if it was new to us. (Knew or new – see how much fun words are?!)

If we already knew the word, we’d try again until we landed on an unfamiliar word, which we would read and add to our vocabulary. (Yes, I was a fun child, and yes, I had a patient mother who loved words just as much as I did.)

I paused just now to revisit this game, by myself, and, eyes closed, fingered the word, “floriferous,” which means “bearing flowers, especially blooming freely.” Ahh, a lovely word for springtime use, and new to me.

A few months ago I learned a new word, though not by playing my childhood game. I stumbled upon it in a blog post. My new word is a good word; a wonderful word: “respair,” meaning “the return of hope after a period of despair.” It’s coined from Latin roots meaning “again” and “hope.”

And yet you won’t find it in many dictionaries, including the 2020 Merriam-Webster Dictionary you see in my photo. The Oxford English Dictionary calls it obsolete, citing only one use from 1425.

But guess what brought this word back from such oblivion? The pandemic! A couple of word-lovers discovered and published the word in 2020, and many readers resonated with a word that described a return to hope in a time of such global despair.

And all of this reminds me of David. Several of the songs he wrote began with despair yet ended with respair.

Consider Psalm 13, whose first two verses lament:

How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Yet listen to the change of tone in the last two verses:

But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing the LORD’s praise,
for he has been good to me. (verses 5-6)

That’s respair!

And Psalm 59 begins like this, in verses 1-3:

Deliver me from my enemies, O God;
be my fortress against those who are attacking me.
Deliver me from evildoers
and save me from those who are after my blood.
See how they lie in wait for me!
Fierce men conspire against me
for no offense or sin of mine, LORD.

And ends like this, in verses 16-17:

But I will sing of your strength,
in the morning I will sing of your love;
for you are my fortress,
my refuge in times of trouble.
You are my strength, I sing praise to you;
you, God, are my fortress,
my God on whom I can rely.

And perhaps the ultimate despair-to-respair song David penned is Psalm 22. Jesus must have known it by heart, a psalm that predicts His suffering, death, resurrection, and triumph. As He was stretched out, dying on the cross, the first nine words of anguish ripped from His throat:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest. (verses 1-2)

Sometimes I find myself avoiding Psalm 22, because it is such a stark description of Jesus’ suffering. It’s easier to read Psalm 23 with its still waters, green pastures, and “Thou art with me.”

Yet Psalm 22 is powerful in its prophecy, threaded through with promise, and reassuring in its triumphant concluding verses:

Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.
They will proclaim his righteousness,
declaring to a people yet unborn:
He has done it! (verses 30-31)

Bring back respair! Bring back the word, and especially the return to hope it describes. Jesus told us we would live in a world of trouble, but reminded us that He had overcome the world, so we must take heart.

As we step out into this brand new week, may you take heart, and live each day in respair.

(All verses quoted from the NIV Bible.)

Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, May 18, 2024

In late April, on my usual post-breakfast walking route, I saw what may have been another bit of breakfast on a sidewalk. I’m not sure if that’s a piece of boiled carrot or sweet potato, or possibly a segment of hot dog, but I’m wondering about the sequence of events which led up to its presence.

I mean, obviously someone was in the middle of chowing down on whatever it is. But normally you don’t spear your food item with a plastic fork unless you’re either inside a house or out at a picnic. And normally, once a morsel of food is on the fork, its destination is seconds away from a waiting mouth.

So, what happened?

Who knows? But as I gazed at this interrupted meal, I was irresistibly reminded of what’s called “the secret rapture.” A number of dispensationalist Christian denominations believe that one of these days—and it might be soon—Jesus will secretly and invisibly arrive in the skies, and everybody who’s saved will vanish, swept up to join Him. And if the saved person happens to be eating, or driving a car, or piloting a plane, or anything else, they’re gone. And their clothing and shoes flop down onto the ground, uninhabited.

Okay. Is that true or not? A whole lot of people think it is, and another whole lot of people believe Jesus’ return will be very different.

The only solution to this dilemma is to read what real Bible verses clearly say about the Second Coming. Interested? Here’s a complete set of Scripture passages on that very topic (just Bible, no spin). Take a few moments to review them. (And relax and enjoy your food!)

https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/second-coming-jesus-christ