In Thy light do we see light. (Psalm 36:10)

 “The best data we have concerning the Big Bang,” Arno Penzias, the Nobel Laureate remarked, “are exactly what I would have predicted if I had nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole" GENESIS 1:1-5 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day… Far away in the beginning,  Dwelt the Word in God Most High… Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along th...

  Things That Never Die, Charles Dickens (1812-1870) The pure, the bright, the beautiful that stirred our hearts in youth, The impulses to wordless prayer, The streams of love and truth, The longing after something lost, The spirit’s longing cry, The striving after better hopes— These things can never die. The timid hand stretched forth to aid A brother in his need; A kindly word in grief’s dark hour That proves a friend indeed; The plea for mercy softly breathed, When justice threatens high, The sorrow of a contrite heart— These things shall never die. Let nothing pass, for every hand Must find some work to do, Lose not a chance to waken love— Be firm and just and true. So shall a light that cannot fade Beam on thee from on high, And angel voices say to thee— “These things shall never die.” "DICKENS showed himself to be an original man by always accepting old and established topics. There is no clearer sign of the absence of originality among modern poets than their disposition t...

   The Railway Train.  I like to see it lap the miles,  And lick the valleys up,  And stop to feed itself at tanks;  And then, prodigious, step  Around a pile of mountains,  And, supercilious, peer  In shanties by the sides of roads;  And then a quarry pare  To fit its sides, and crawl between,  Complaining all the while  In horrid, hooting stanza;  Then chase itself down hill  And neigh like Boanerges;  Then, punctual as a star,  Stop—docile and omnipotent— At its own stable door. Emily Dickinson We at the Wabash Institute of Train Song Studies were saddened to hear of the passing of Leon Redbone. The version of Polly Wolly Doodle by Mr. Redbone linked to below was included in our official list of train songs we compiled in recognition of October being National Train Song Month several years ago, when we were still a functioning entity. We consider the train reference contained therein to be one of the...

  If you're John Muir you want trees to  live among. If you're Emily,  a garden will do. Try to find the right place for yourself. If you can't find it, at least dream of it. Mary Oliver  "Astonishing! Everything is intelligent!” Pythagoras "When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." John Muir "Inside this clay jug there are canyons and pine mountains, and the maker of canyons and pine mountains! All seven oceans are inside, and hundreds of millions of stars." Kabir “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder." G.K. Chesterton Living organisms inexplicably exist, possessing astonishing intelligence and complexity (as well as often great beauty), even in their most simple forms. The wonder of this intelligence and unfathomable functional complexity they possess, (utilizing and coordinating like a supercomputer information, not to mention matter, and energy,...

https://youtu.be/dIlEfNbcz7g Cave of Forgotten Dreams Werner Herzog documentary about the Chauvet Cave in France which has artwork about 36,000 years old, and was not a bad place to be if you were trying to survive during an Ice Age in Europe with a late Stone Age hunter/gatherer way of life. "INDEED I once knew a lady who half-humorously suggested that the cave was a creche, in which the babies were put to be specially safe, and that coloured animals were drawn on the walls to amuse them; very much as diagrams of elephants and giraffes adorn a modern infant school. And though this was but a jest, it does draw attention to some of the other assumptions that we make only too readily. The pictures do not prove even that the cave-men lived in caves, any more than the discovery of a wine-cellar in Balham (long after that suburb had been destroyed by human or divine wrath) would prove that the Victorian middle classes lived entirely underground. The cave might have had a special purpos...