Signs

S is for Signs. Whenever I have my camera with me I like to take pictures of unusual signs. This one taken in San Pedro Belize has to be one of my all time favorites. No we didn't eat there.



It seems like the maintenance men at King's Casino in Louisiana would have noticed that some maintenance was needed. It's a sin.



Just because there is a restaurant and a motel on the same premises doesn't mean that they should share the sign. We were hungry, but not that hungry.



Lake Leatherwood, near Eureka Springs, Arkansas, is formed by one of the largest hand-cut native limestone dams in the country. The dam and several structures at the park were built in the early 1940s by the WPA. This sign on the lake appears to have been built in the 40's but I'm not quite sure why it was needed.



Here is a music video made from my pictures of signs. One of my favorite songs from the 70's is "Signs" by "The Five Man Electrical Band". It seemed like an appropriate song for this post. Take a look.




I took all of the sign photos in this post and in the video except this one that I found on the internet this morning.  Since I was posting about signs, I just had to add this one more.

Always make sure and read the fine print!

The ABC Wednesday Meme is a fun way to see some great blogs.

Oklahoma National Memorial

This evening we visited the Oklahoma National Memorial in Oklahoma City. The memorial honors the 168 victims of the 1995 bombing of the Murrah building.  It was a very moving experience. 

Postcard

Recently while I was looking around an antique store, I came across this postcard.  I don't collect postcards, but there was something about this one that interested me.  The first thing was the subject matter.  The scene, Dam on the Ouachita River in Hot Springs, Arkansas, no longer exists because of the Blakely Mountain Dam that was built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in the early 50's to create Lake Ouachita.  I'm not sure of the date of the postcard, but it has to be before 1952 because it could be mailed for one cent.  Although the subject matter and age were interesting, what really grabbed my attention was the correspondence on the back.

It says, "Well I am still alive yet of course you know it is pretty hard to kill me.  How are crops out there.  I tell you if you come down in Arkansas and look at the land I bet you get back on the first train.  My I never seen such land.  I wouldn't stay down in Arkansas if they would deed me the whole state."  It just tickled my funny bone.  Never has a person been so unimpressed with Arkansas.  I'm quite certain that the writer of the postcard didn't settle in Arkansas.

Resolutions

R is for Resolutions.  My favorite cartoon when I was a kid was Peanuts. I remember one comic strip in particular. It is January 1st, and Charlie Brown tells anyone who will listen, “The best way to keep New Year’s Resolutions is in a sealed envelope in a bottom desk drawer.

Charlie Brown knew what every person who has ever made a resolution knows. Making and keeping resolutions is a troublesome business, usually filled with failure and shame.

How have your past resolutions worked out for you? I don't even want to talk about mine. If you have often made and broken resolutions, you may feel that you might as well seal them in a bottom desk drawer and forget them. That is the experience I have had.



If you ask the average person about the resolutions they made, they will tell you that they are going to cut down on their eating, they are going to exercise more, stop doing unhealthy things, and start doing healthy things, etc.

While these things are good, they all focus on self and rely on self. These kinds of things are in fact self-serving and look to the power of one’s self to accomplish them. Self-improvement for most people means making themselves more attractive, healthier and happier. They depend on the power of the human will to bring about the changes.

Look at how different our typical resolutions are from the words of Paul in Colossians 3:12-14. “God has chosen you and made you his holy people. He loves you. So always do these things: Show mercy to others, be kind, humble, gentle, and patient. Get along with each other, and forgive each other. If someone does wrong to you, forgive that person because the Lord forgave you. Do all these things; but most important, love each other. Love is what holds you all together in perfect unity."

Notice how Paul’s words are focused on others. If we are to use resolutions wisely, we need to turn our attention away from ourselves and toward others. We need to get the focus off of ourselves, and on to God and the strength that comes only from him. What kind of resolutions should we make?

John was called the disciple that Jesus loved. It appears that Jesus had a best friend. I want my resolution to be the words that the best friend of Jesus wrote in 1 John 4:7,8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love”.


I don’t know of a better resolution that you could make. If we would all make the resolution to love one another imagine how different the world would be.

My wife's cousin, Jerry Patton, spent 37 years as the second tenor of The King's Heralds Quartet, the oldest continuous gospel quartet in America.


One of my favorite songs that he sang was titled One Little Candle. The lyrics are great.

It's better to light just one little candle
Than to stumble in the dark
Better far that you light just one little candle
All you need's a tiny spark

If we'd all say a prayer that the world would be free
The wonderful dawn of the new day we'll see
And if everyone lit just one little candle
What a bright world this would be

If each day each one of us would resolve to love one another there would be less division, hate, suffering and sorrow.

P.S. Check out Restore A Child.  They  believe that every child is a precious gift to the world and that all children deserve the chance to flourish physically and mentally. Restore A Child helps to provide children in desperate need with the basic essentials necessary for them to live healthy, fulfilled lives.



The ABC Wednesday Meme is a fun way to see some great blogs.

Arkansas Autumn

Last weekend we made a quick getaway to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. We were hoping to see some beautiful fall foliage, and we certainly weren't disappointed.  The trip up Hwy 23, known as The Pig Trail, was breathtaking.  The colors were as pretty as I can remember seeing here in Arkansas.  We were fortunate to see the colors at their peak.

We have been visiting Eureka Springs for almost 30 years, but in all that time we had never visited Pivot Rock.  The Natural Bridge and Pivot Rock have been tourist attractions in Eureka Springs since the late 1800's.  They have actually attained historic status as an attraction.  We decided that we would visit them on this trip.  The attractions are along a short but steep trail.  When we visited it was a perfect fall afternoon and the short hike was beautiful.  To see a 360 degree view of the area click here.

On this trip to Eureka Springs we stayed at Sherwood Court Cottages. We have stayed there several times before really like the quaint cottages.  It was a very relaxing weekend.  We spent most of our time simply driving around this interesting town.  For a little bit of history and perspective on Eureka Springs, click here.  The fall colors were exceptional and I had a great time taking photos.

Whenever you go spend time in Eureka Springs, you will see and experience some things that are out of the ordinary.  This weekend there was a Zombie Parade.  Many of the locals dressed as Zombies and paraded down Spring Street.  I must say that it was a unique, only in Eureka, kind of experience.

Each year we try to make a trip to Eureka Springs when the fall colors are pretty.  I won't say that this has been the most beautiful year ever for fall color here in Arkansas, but I will say that I have never seen it more beautiful.  I hope that wherever you are , you were able to see some autumn beauty.

Criticize or Encourage - The Mena Star

This is my article as published in the November 7, 2013 issue of The Mena Star

As we go through life, one of the constants seems to be criticism.  I'm sure that everyone has been the recipient of criticism and has more than likely been critical of others.  Criticism is not an effective way of solving problems.  What methods should we use in place of criticism? How about trying affirmation. During the Wednesday night prayer meeting at my church, we have been studying 1 Thessalonians. We have seen that even when Paul was addressing problems he included plenty of affirmation. It's been shown that, in order to neutralize the emotional impact of criticism, one must affirm five times.

Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:11, "so encourage each other and give each other strength, just as you are doing now". Are you encouraging those around you or are you criticizing?  Elizabeth Harrison, a pioneer in early childhood education in America stated, "Those who are lifting the world upward and onward are those who encourage more than criticize".

When I was in grade school I often heard the retort, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me". That statement is not true. In fact, words may not break our bones, but they certainly can damage our spirits. In Proverbs 12:18 the Bible tells us, "sharp words can wound as deeply as any sword, but wisely spoken words can heal".

When we speak words of criticism we are not following God's plan. Ephesians 4:29 says, "do not use harmful words, but only helpful words, the kind that build up and provide what is needed, so that what you say will do good to those who hear you". If we want to help someone we need to encourage them, not criticize them. I need to ask myself, "Am I encouraging others"?  God's Word certainly tells us to do so.

When we encourage and help others, we are showing God’s love. I encourage you to try it. Show someone how much you value them for who they are. Encouragement can drastically change a person’s life! I recently ran across a story written by Kathy Schultz. She said that, "pink is my granddaughter's favorite color. She had been telling me this since she first discovered colors. The other night as she chatted away, she added that yellow was another one of her favorite colors."

Kathy went on to explain why her granddaughter had added yellow as a favorite color. She said that when she asked about the new favorite color, her granddaughter began by telling her that when she went to music class, Mrs. Cooke, the music teacher told her she was a bright yellow crayon, bright as the sun.

Kathy wrote, "this is a wonderful description of my grandchild! The teacher was right. She is a bubbly, cheerful, child. Truly, she is a bright ray of sunshine." She concluded by saying, "words have such power. A small statement made by her teacher had truly inspired my granddaughter. It made her even list yellow as her favorite color. I doubt she will ever forget the teacher's kind remarks. This made me think of the words I say. Do I say kind, encouraging, inspiring words to others?"

The word ‘encouragement’ means to support. When we encourage we speak words that uphold someone to bring change for the better. By our words we need to let them know that we support their dreams, pursuits, and goals. We all tend to get discouraged from time to time and need encouragement.

Colossians 3:12 tells us, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” If we clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience we will be perfectly equipped to be an encouragement to others. We will not have a critical spirit.

To criticize or encourage, the choice is yours. I hope that your choice will be to encourage others. If you do, God will encourage you!

Quadrillion

Q is for Quadrillion.  In the U.S.A. and in most English-speaking countries and Arabic-speaking countries a quadrillion refers to one thousand million million, or 1,000,000,000,000,000.  Some countries use number designations based on the long scale system where every new term greater than million is a million times the previous term.  In the long scale system a quadrillion refers to one million million million million or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.  How can we understand the concept of such large numbers.

To try and get an idea of what a quadrillion is take a look at this cube.  It represents 1,000,067,088,384,000; or just over one quadrillion pennies stacked in a cube. To get an idea of the scale we have from right to left, a football field, then the Lincoln Memorial, then the Washington Monument (555 feet tall), then a cube of one trillion pennies, then the Empire State Building (1,250 feet tall), then the Sears Tower (1,450 feet tall).  The cube is roughly a half-mile wide, (2,730 feet) and would weigh an astonishing three billion tons. That's a lot of pennies.

When people think of big numbers it is interesting the things that are used as symbols of big numbers.  Matthew 10:30 in the Bible says, “but the very hairs of your head are all numbered”.  So how big a number is the very hairs of your head.  According to the Harvard university website Bionumbers, the number of hairs on a human head range from 90,000 to 150,000.  Interestingly the number of hairs is different for different hair colors.  Blondes have 150,000 hairs, people with brown hair have 110,000 hairs, those with black hair have 100,000 hairs and redheads have just 90,000 hairs.

Other symbols of a big number in the Bible are found in Genesis 22:17, “I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore”.  First let’s look at sand which is on the seashore.  Science writer David Blatner, in his new book Spectrums, says,  "a group of researchers at the University of Hawaii, being well-versed in all things beachy, tried to calculate the number of grains of sand.  They said, if you assume a grain of sand has an average size and you calculate how many grains are in a teaspoon and then multiply by all the beaches and deserts in the world, the Earth has roughly, and we're speaking very roughly here, 7.5 x 10 to the 18th  grains of sand, or seven thousand five hundred quadrillion grains". That's a lot of grains of sand.

What about the stars of the heavens?  To get an idea of how many stars are in the universe, let’s look at a photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope called The Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Astronomers picked a seemingly empty spot in the sky. Staring at the spot in the sky for ten days, The Hubble Telescope kept taking pictures one after another for the entire exposure time, accumulating data. Astronomers put the exposures together into one final picture. Each time they added an exposure, the view got deeper, revealing fainter objects. When they were done they had the deepest picture ever taken of the heavens.

The image is of a small region in the constellation Ursa Major. It covers an area 2.5 arc minutes across, one part in a million of the whole sky. The image contains an estimated 10,000 galaxies. That would mean that the whole universe contains a million times 10,000 galaxies. Astronomers estimate that our home galaxy, the Milky Way, contains around 400 billion stars. How many stars are in the universe?  10,000 million times 400 billion or 4 times 10 to the 21st.  That is 4 million quadrillion.  So that makes stars the champion of big numbers, right?  Yes, the number of stars in the heavens is "an unbelievably large number, but you will find the same number of molecules in just ten drops of water.   If you took 10 drops of water (not extra-big drops, just regular drops) and counted the number of H2O molecules in those drops, you'd get a number equal to all the stars in the universe.  I can't imagine how big the number is that describes the number of molecules of water that are in the earth's oceans.

This is amazing to me. For some reason, when someone says million, billion or trillion, quadrillion, I see an enormous pile of something, great sweeps of desert sand, twirling masses of stars. Big things come from lots of stuff; little things from less stuff. That seems intuitive.  But that's wrong. Little things, if they're really little, can pile up just like big things.  So next time I look up at the sky at all those stars, I will be impressed, of course, by the great numbers that are out there. But I will remind myself that at the other end of the scale, in the nooks and crannies of the physical world, in the teeniest of places, there are equally vast numbers of teenier things.

The ABC Wednesday Meme is a fun way to see some great blogs.