Morning Musings

I am starting a new section called Morning Musings.  This will be a little different than what I normally write about.  I try to start every day with a Bible reading, and with the reading of some inspirational book, and now I am planning on writing about whatever catches my imagination from these readings.  Right now I am in Acts, and I am reading a book called "Lunch with C. S. Lewis".

Beauty is a wonderful argument for the existence of God.  Beauty can also cause us to forget God, to place our hope and love in the wrong places.  Beauty, creativity, the arts, they all stem from somewhere, from some place.  I am amazed at the creative genius that produces works of music or art.  Microscopic life, birds and butterflies, all these and more define and reflect beauty.  The earth is full of the wonder and beauty of creation. 

When I read a great novel I want to meet the writer.  When I see an inspiring painting, or listen to music, I wonder what the mind is or was like that could produce such beauty.  It is the same with nature.  I stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon and marvel at the genius of nature.  I hike in the Tetons and am in awe.  Watching a bird fly, or a horse run, watching waves crash on the shore and dolphins swim, all of these things cause a great love and admiration to fill my soul.  Who is the writer, the creator, of these great things?  Nature is, and yet, nature is not.  Wind, rain, geologic forces create and shape our planet, but can simple forces always produce such wonder and beauty.  I believe there is more to the story.

People are creative.  We create when we tell bedtime stories to children, when we design our living rooms and choose paint colors, when we plant flowers and bushes.  We are creative when we write music, or when we play our instruments or sing at the top of our voices.  Where do we get this creativity?  Why do we desire to create? What force of nature makes us want to write poetry, or paint?  Was it an environmental design, passed down for some strange survival reason we can’t understand?  I believe it has to be more.  What is the reason for beauty?  What is the reason for symmetry, or for the slight departure of symmetry that catches our eye and makes a thing even more interesting? 

Could beauty be a part of the design, a reflection of the designer?  Perhaps this world is just an image, a reflection of something bigger, and greater than we can understand.  The fleeting beauty, found side by side with ugly and evil, this glimpse of wonder, I believe it is here for a reason.  I think it can’t be removed, much like a struggling flower that grows in the cracks of broken cement; it can’t be pushed away or stopped.  There is a reason for this, and I believe it is due to the Creator.  The beauty is simply a tiny reflection of where we, and this world, came from.  

Beethoven is my favorite composer, and the 9^th is the greatest piece of music ever, in my small and limited world of music.  I listen, and am transported to another place, another way of feeling.  The music changes me.  But the music did not create itself.  The music was conceived in the mind of a musical genius, a deaf man that could still feel and remember the music in his soul.  Where did Beethoven get his spark, his ability to imagine notes in such a way that listeners would be so changed? 

God created man, He created these people with their own creative skills.  Beethoven, for example, is only a sliver of the Great Creative Beauty of God.  Nature produces wonderful places, and the wind, rain, sun and storms are all parts of this beauty.  But, God created nature, He created the world and all that is in it.  Nature is only a sliver of the Great Creative Beauty of God.  When I am in awe of nature, art, and beauty, I am really in awe of the tiny sliver of the great creative beauty of God that we have been permitted to see. 

We can worship the items created, or we can worship the Creator.  In the book of Acts a silversmith became angry when Paul taught people that Artemis wasn’t a god, that statues were not worthy of worship.  Demetrius says, “They say gods made from hands are no gods at all.”  I read that and laughed, thinking that of course things made by hands are not gods.  If we create our own gods, then those gods are not worthy of us bowing down to worship.  Yet this we do, when we place the created things far above the one that created.  We worship the tiny, the particle, the sliver, when we could be worshipping the great, the entire, the complete.

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Florida and the Fountain of Youth, by Shelley Hopkins

St Augustine, Florida

What better place to spend my 50^th birthday than at the Fountain of Youth.  I wanted a grand adventure, something exciting and special that would help me to feel young and daring when hitting the mid century mark, and I began dreaming of exotic locations over a year ago.  Unfortunately the dream trips to Europe, Finland and or Peru and Argentina were beyond my reach.  After trying to work out a visit to Costa Rica or even a simple visit to Montana for hiking, I gave up.  I was sure I was going to turn 50 in a movie theater or a shopping mall.  But at the last minute my dear husband suggested a camping trip to the Florida Keys.  I was thrilled.

On my birthday we started the trip, and our first destination was St. Augustine, Florida.  I usually am not interested in touristy attractions, but I couldn’t pass up a chance to drink from the  “Fountain of Youth” on the day I turned 50.  We paid our admission, late in the day, and walked through the park.  Our first stop was at the fountain; a natural spring that we were told had provided water for the local Indian tribes.  I waited in line, took a plastic cup from a provided stack and collected a full glass of the water.  My husband snapped a photo of me drinking, while my kids looked embarrassed.  The water was awful, horrible, and foul.  It had a sulfur taste to it, along with the salty beach water flavor.  I decided it was better to grow old, and I poured out the rest of the magic elixir. 

We moved on to a demonstration of the matchlock gun that had been used by the early Spanish soldiers.  A historian taught us how the gun worked.  A matchlock is a complicated machine, using a soaked cord and a small covered pan filled with gunpowder.  It is safer than a flintlock if the shooter followed all the correct steps in the right order. I couldn’t imagine following all the steps carefully in the heat of battle. He lit the soaked rope, spoke all his commands in Spanish, struck flint and shot the rifle, with a loud bang and a blast of smoke.  Peacocks strutted all over the grounds, beautiful but annoying birds with strange calls.  The historian wanted with all his heart to have just a little ammo in the gun, to take out the birds.

After walking the grounds we made our way to the cannon demonstration, shadowed by dark and heavy clouds.  Thunder rolled, the sky darkened and a man dressed in red wool covered the cannon with a tarp.  He shook his head at us, and pointed to the sky.  At that point rain began to fall, and we ran quickly to a covered pavilion, entering just in time.  The sound of the rain, the hot air, and the giggles of those of us that were dry together made me feel like I was in another world.  The rain was beautiful to watch, and at first cooled the air, but soon the humidity and heat returned. 

Of course the visit was fun, and the pictures of the marsh and harbor were beautiful, but the history left a little to be desired.  It was Ponce de Leon who supposedly searched for the Fountain of Youth, and yet he never actually set foot in St. Augustine.  He was an explorer, and searcher of gold, but not really interested in a myth. He landed on the banks of Florida near Daytona Beach, in 1513, years before the pilgrims had reached our shores.  

In the study of history we have to trust our sources, we have to know whether the things written were actually intended to be taken as pure history or as fanciful story telling.  I recently read the book “A Voyage Long and Strange’” by Tony Horowitz.  He wrote of the Spanish settlements and explorations, and he visited many of the places, writing as a travelogue.  He uses travel as a method of introducing history and geography, much like many of us like to do as we travel.  Part of visiting a place is learning the history, walking in the steps of famous people and seeing where momentous actions took place that affect the present.  Unfortunately we have to be careful of what we accept as truth, like with anything.

The local Indians of St. Augustine were the Timucuan Indians, and it had been rumored by the French explorers that these Indians had lived up to 250 years, and that they were taller than normal.  Of course, their true history disappeared as these Indians died out from disease and mistreatment.  The tourist attraction we enjoyed was mostly focused on the fountain, a giant globe, the peacocks and the gun and cannons, but a small section had been devoted to the Indian remains that had been found on the property.

That night we found a KOA just across the bridge from downtown, and selected an air-conditioned camping cabin. These cabins are small, usually come with one large bed and a set of bunk beds.  The “campers” bring sheets or sleeping bags, but the most important thing was the air conditioner.   The heat was stifling, and we just couldn’t imagine tent camping.  For supper we drove to the beach and selected a tiny restaurant that had only three indoor tables, and maybe the same number outside, where we enjoyed a good seafood dinner.  We walked along the beach and the pier, watching the rough waves.  Surfers were having good luck, but swimming was tough.  The shore dipped down where the surf had eroded it away.  Walking with just my feet in the water, a wave washed over my knees, hit the rounded shore and bounced back over my stomach, drenching me. 

The moon was full, and lovely over the water.  We walked out on the pier after dark, watched kids playing on the sand with glow sticks, and for a few minutes we sat with the serious fishermen who were set up for the night.

In the morning we ate our breakfast on our little porch looking over the tiny campground pond.  I saw a long necked bird swimming, his entire body under water.  The head looked a little like a snake, and as we were watching, he tossed up and swallowed a minnow.  This was the snakebird, or anhinga. 

We stopped at the Castillo de San Marco and explored under the burning sun.  After missing the cannon demonstration yesterday we hurried to see the forts version.  Several cannon were aimed at the harbor filled with sail boats.  A group of men marched past us in heavy hot wool coats, again shouting their instructions in Spanish.

The cannons fired, and wads of bread showered over the harbor waters.  In touring the fort I learned a lot about Florida’s history, things I either never really knew or had forgotten. Pedro Menendez landed with his ships at St Augustine in 1565, and claimed la Florida for Spain.  After the French and Indian war Spain ceded Florida to Great Britain, and then regained the state after the Revolutionary War.  In 1812 Americans living in Spanish Florida and in Georgia started a revolt, planning to add Florida back to the United States. They captured St. Augustine, but lost it when the Seminole Indians stepped in to help the Spanish.  Later, in 1821, Spain signed a treaty giving the state to the United States and the fort was renamed Fort Marion.  During the Civil War the fort was first captured by Confederates and then taken by the Union.  Only recently has the fort been renamed Castillo de San Marco.

As we walked under the deep blue sky on such a hot day, looking at a building from the 1500’s and watching demonstrators fire cannons, speaking in Spanish, it was easy to feel like we were in another country.  St. Augustine was a true tourist town, with beautiful buildings and living history, but also with trolley tours and little trains carting hot tourists around town, driving on the streets.  It was an interesting place, part theme park and part exotic travel.  I want to go back!