I was reflecting more on my previous post Mirror, mirror – I’m sorry, I can’t resist puns! I was thinking about how our images change as we grow and age. We tend to adopt fashions which are the fashion of our generation. Though that fashion might change as years pass, there is a continuing theme through our lives, and quite often we can guess a person’s age by the style of clothes or hair.
What do you see when you look in the mirror?
Do you see somebody you like?
Do you see wrinkles, make-up?
Fancy clothes?
Nice hair, tousled hair, no hair?
Libby and I have a cat, a wonderful cat who goes by the name of Keziah.
But Keziah is like all cats. She is demanding and self-centred, greedy and sometimes destructive. She is always after something. We get up in the morning and she is immediately asking for food. After she has eaten, she wants to be on my knee and for me to start petting her. Then she wants out. Then she wants in. Then she wants fed. Then she wants petted. Then she wants out. And so it goes on. She has even learned to beg like a dog for food. She is always after something, and if we ignore her she might resort to picking the carpet to bits with her claws.
Why do we do it?
Sometimes he does it in the form of an amazing miracle, such as sending manna and quail to feed the Israelites in the desert. Sometimes he does it through the voice of Jesus, who told Lazarus to come out of the tomb. Sometimes he does it through Peter’s shadow, healing the sick at the side of the road, and sometimes he does it through the great evangelists of today. Sometimes it is spontaneous, mostly it is through prayer, always it is because of love.
I was surfing through the TV channels one night and stopped on the God Channel (something I don’t often do). The man speaking was challenging all those listening to find out what “God’s Ways” are.
The next day, I was reading the book of Exodus in the bible, chapter 33 and there Moses is asking God to show him “His Ways”.
Can anyone out there remember the days when there were less than three TV stations in the UK? Or only three radio stations (excluding Radio Luxembourg)? I can! Daytime viewing was a test card. Not only that, but TV programmes were black and white. In fact, I think most of my childhood memories are black and white, so perhaps the whole world was slightly lacking in hue!
Are you happy? Do you know it? Do you show it?
It has always amazed me how much a smile can change a face and make it more attractive, better looking – male or female. Those smiles which are just on the cusp of bursting into laughter are by far the most attractive, and they are infectious. When a smile becomes laughter, things start to happen.
What would we do without hands? For most of us, very little. From our earliest moments, even before we are born, we use them.
Even in the womb, a baby will start sucking its thumb. The baby is perhaps learning the skills that it will need to feed once it is born. Once the baby is born, it will continue to suck its thumb, but will soon discover that those funny looking things at the ends of its arms are not just good to put in its mouth.
I have been known to be a bit clumsy. I am also a master of the understatement!
You are in the supermarket, by the stationery counter, and someone walks up to the shelf, picks up a pen and puts it in his/her pocket, then just walks out of the store. Your natural reaction is to think, “He stole that.” You might even start to shout about it, or run to the security man and tell him. People shouldn’t be able to do that. They shouldn’t get away with it. It’s stealing. It’s wrong. It’s sin. “Thief! Stop thief!”
The more I think of what Stephen Hawking has been saying, the more I am at a loss as to why he is so far from the truth! What does he see when he looks up? An equation? Has he ever seen a sunset and marvelled at the beauty of it rather than thinking that it is merely light passing through dust particles? I am not just getting at him. I feel sadness about the power of a theory which is blind to the beauty of creation.
Stephen Hawking says there is no need to invoke God to set the Universe going. He adds: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”
Sorry, God, you are not needed – someone greater than you has spoken. Never mind the fact that he doesn’t say where the law of gravity came from in the first place.