His way

As many of you have heard, Will has used me, or something I have said, as part of several sermons of his sermons.  Tonight I get to use something from him as part of tonight’s thought.
My friend, Will Tidwell, sent me a text today.
“Thinking of my brother trail warrior as I come down from grotto falls.” GSMNP
I responded, “Envy is a sin, and I confess it fully.”
It really made me think about envy, and how it is such an easy sin for us to make a part of our everyday life. Yes, it is true that I would have rather been on a trail somewhere than at my desk at work.   To rise to the level of envy, I think I would have to wish that Will’s good fortune on the trail end in a fall or a rockslide because I could not be hiking. It makes me think of all the things of which sin robs us.
From that point, I went on to  think about how sin robs us of the “Fruit of the Spirit”
Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
If I am envious, then I cannot love, and I  do love Will like a brother.
If I am envious, then I cannot enjoy the pictures that he send me from what I believe was “Clingman’s Dome”. 
We are called upon to be purified by obedience to the truth.
1 Peter 1:22-2:1
22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for
“All flesh is like grass
    and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
    and the flower falls,
25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.
Those who have put on Christ in baptism are to continue in obedience to the truth.  How we can continue in sin that robs us of love, joy, and peace, when it’s that is our heart desire?  How we treat each other; anger, lies, saying one thing while doing another, and the terrible things say; these things keep us from being as God would have us be.  His word is truth.  Jesus said,

John 14:6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So if Jesus is the truth, his is the way that we should live our life.

For those who have surrendered to Jesus in baptism, we need to continue in him.  For those who have not yet surrender to
His way, setting aside malice and deceit; and 
his truth, setting aside hypocrisy, envy and slander;
so that you might have a life in Him filled with love, joy, peace and the rest of the fruit of the spirit, why delay?
Whatever your need, whether to return to Christ or to put him on in baptism, now is the time to make it know as we stand together and sing.

Rolling Eyes

Today's blog is not hiking related, but it is about the trail called "life" that we all live everyday.  My daughter graduated from  high school in May.  As daughters go, she has been relatively "low drama".  She will be heading off to college this month.  

From EHCS Fine Arts Academy of Rogers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella"

So now her trail will take a turn and truly diverge from mine.  I'm going to miss her, even the "eye rolls".

Oh No!!! They are Cutting the Grass

I decided that today was another good day to go for a walk in Centennial Park. As I walk from my office to the park, I cringe at a noise coming from the park ahead of me.  It is not a scream of someone being attacked.  It's not the noise of a squirrel or dove being torn to shreds by a Red Tailed Hawk.  No, it is a ugly mechanical sound that sends shivers down my spine.  Just yesterday, I was taking pictures of wildflowers in the park.  Today, they are cutting the grass.  Would my happy little wildflowers be literally cut off in their prime? Thankfully, these survived for another day, however, I fear their days are numbered.  Man is in the park and has brought with him his machines.

I think this is False Garlic (Nothoscordum bivalve)

What is this?

Just a Walk in the Park

I went for a walk in the Nashville's Centennial Park today a lunchtime. I did not have a lot of time, but I decided I would walk around the lake so that I could visit the Sunken Garden.  I missed out on seeing the tulips earlier in the year so I thought I would see what was planted to come up next.  A walk through such a garden is calming to the spirit.

To contemplate a single flower can be a mesmerizing experience.

For the gardener, the garden is his canvas.  Each flower is placed in a particular spot within a bed in the garden so that together the flowers are a story of color and dimension.  I like the artistry of such gardens and the plans that go into them.  That being said, I like the wild gardens that no man has planted. Even in an urban park, nature will find away.

Never Stop Learning

Well, I finally got to meet a Facebook friend about a week ago.  Michael and I both enjoy hiking, wildflowers and photography.  After a number of looking at each others nature photography, we finally linked up for a hike..

Michael's interest in the Cedar Glades where I hike goes back to time he spent in similar places while in college.  He did field work in a Cedar Glade, and has helped me learn more about the plants and their flowers.  He pointed me to the book Wildflowers of Tennessee the Ohio Valley and the Southern Appalachians as a great reference for identifying the flowers.  He has helped me identify flowers, even going back to a his field book from the 1980's to determine what flower matching my description bloomed in April in the Cedar Glades.  I appreciate Michael's knowledge and willingness to share it.  I appreciate his love of nature.  Perhaps we will meet on the trail again sometime.  Until then, we will look at each others pictures from the outdoors, and I'll still have to ask him what some of the flowers are, but I am getting better.  Speaking of which, I think I mowed down some Common Wood Sorrel in my back yard on Saturday. Before it was just a weed.  Now it is a wildflower in my own backyard.

In Variety, the Same Thing Only Different

Well, I've been out walking the cedar glads again. I find it incredible that these rocky places are so full of plant life that is so varied and so unique. As  I captured photo throughout last year, I noticed how many different flowers, but usually only only a few different one at a time.  Not everything blooms at once in a cedar glade.  This is very interesting and make sense.  The plants are in a competition for pollinators, and some probably have specific pollinators. That made me think of a about "Why Poor Places Are More Diverse"  by Minute Earth.


On my recent hikes, I happened across these "pretty little flowers".  I am not a botanist, so I did not know what they were.  I asked around, and found out that they are both leavenworthia stylosa. The top one is the white with yellow center form and the bottom one is the yellow form.  While both are found in glades in Middle Tennessee, I found did not find both colors in the same glade.  The white form I found at the Couchville Glade State Natural Area and the yellow form at the Mount View Cedar Glade State Natural Area.

These are the same plant, according to botanist, but with different pigmentation characteristics.  I find it interesting how these to populations only a few miles apart can be so isolated from each other that the colorations seem to be segregated.  I am sure someone could study this and probably prove me wrong, but I just thought the theory was worth positing.

I have not been hiking.

I have got to get outside.  Life has been entirely too busy. I traveled 4 of the last five weeks.  My home computer crash.  By the way, I hate Windows 8.1.  I like my new Dell 8700 XPS Special Edition.  The boot time with the SSD is extremely fast.  I had some problems getting my old Fantom Drives (by Micronet) MDE-2000.  Apparently, Windows does not like the old Raid Arrays.  Oh well, I found a work-around.

Maybe I can get outside one day this coming weekend.  It's a three day weekend.  YEAH!!!