Tag: Science

I’m thanking you, God, from a full heart, I’m writing the book on your wonders. I’m whistling, laughing, and jumping for joy; I’m singing your song, High God.
Psalms 9:1-2 The Message

Several years ago, I drove through the Painted Hills on my way to visit Montana. Though I did not stop to walk the trails, I looked in awe through my windshield at the warm pastel and bold hues against the blue sky.

The Painted Hills are one of the three units of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument.

John Day was a vague, interesting man — what is documented about him. And some of the biographical information that exists about him is conflicting. He had four death dates, and his birth date is estimated. Even though he spent only eight years in Oregon country (he predated Oregon as a territory), cities, dams, and geographical formations are named after him.

Born in Virginia, he also lived in Kentucky and Missouri. From Missouri, he joined the Pacific Fur Company’s passage to Astoria in 1812. Astoria was founded in 1811 and became a monopoly on the fur trade. His hunting and trapping skills were sustenance during the expedition to the Northwest.

The Painted Hills contains an abundance of fossils from the remains of horses, camels, and rhinoceroses covering over 3,132 total acres. The hills began as a floodplain. The layered red, yellow, brown, and black colored soils originate from different climate eras, ranging from drier and cooler to warmer and humid.

The Painted Hills are one of the Seven Wonders of Oregon.

When I am stressed, one of my activities to breathe deeply is to walk along the Pacific. I instantly feel awe and wonder. To see the limitless horizon of ocean and sky reminds me of my Creator. It never gets old.

It may be a walk in a forest trail for you, brown sandy wide open spaces of the desert, the mountain vistas, or plains of wind-swept grass. It may be a park in a cityscape or the square of your backyard.

God’s nature reminds us of our Creator, keeps us humble before him. It reminds us of Who is in charge.

Isaiah 35:1-2, 6-7 NIV
The desert and the parched land will be glad;the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

Sailors call the bioluminescence on the surface of the waters “sea fire.” Astronaut Jim Lovell, while a Navy pilot, landed safely on the aircraft carrier USS Shangri-La. He used bioluminescence as a navigation system when the mechanical one failed.

Noctiluca scintillans is a Latin term. Noctiluca means shine by night and scintillans means sparkling.

On the Oregon coast (and other places around the world but primarily on coastal areas), Noctiluca scintillans are the organisms that illuminate the waters. Since they can’t swim, they move through waves action.

Between prolific reproduction and water movement, a bloom may form. They reproduce through either binary or multiple fission. In multiple fission, the cells divide from the parent cells as buds.

Their molecules die at sunrise and rebirth at sunset. Their light is inherent; it comes from within them and does not rely on an outside source. But it is a cold light, meaning that less than 20% of it generates heat. The bioluminescence in healthy cells appears as a flash, and it appears in the dying cells over minutes.

We have the light of the Holy Spirit within us, and it can spread into a blooming light to spread His love and righteousness in our state. Sometimes He speaks in a flash, sometimes over time. As we accept the calling on our lives, sometimes it takes some dying to ourselves to answer the call, but the light flashes even during this process.

Bloom, as a verb defined, means to mature or glow with a healthy color. Though the light of Oregon maybe a cold one now, it is still a light that can mature into a God-given heat of health.