Posted by
Jim Hunt on Monday, December 22, 2008 10:19:30 AM
This morning I am blessed to be back in Maine and observing the glory of nature’s work. More than 18 inches of light fluffy snow fell here yesterday and overnight. Later in the season this type of storm becomes a nuisance, but now, just 3 days before Christmas, the chore of cleaning up doesn’t seem so bad. There is nothing in the world that I have seen that can match the peacefulness of standing on eastern shore of Southport Island and looking out at the snow covered islands with their pine trees standing stark against the sky, the brilliant deep blue water with its layer of sea smoke, and the impossibly blue sky. I would challenge anyone to look at the view, to listen to the silence and drink in the glory of the sun in the 14° (F) air and tell me with a straight face that this was all the result of random luck. Add to this the joyful laughter of children sledding and enjoying a day off from school and we approach the perfection of heaven on earth.
I try not to go in for generalities, but it does seem to me that most atheists come from big cities and the ivy towers of academia where they are unfortunately sheltered from the “real” world. I feel sorry for anyone who can look on such a view as from Southport or a sunset off Key West or the Grand Canyon or the majesty of the Rockies and merely see geothermal, chemical, and physical effects without seeing beauty.
The Grand Canyon is not merely a trench; it is a work of art that even Leonardo could never match. (The artist from Vinci, not the actor whose name implies he came from the island of Capri). The glory of God is all around us, every minute of every day, not just on the 25th of December. This is a fact that our founders clearly understood and depended upon. Virtually every writing of the time makes reference to their “firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.” They would be absolutely appalled to see all of the attempts to remove religion from our lives today. The establishment clause was put in place to first make sure that the government would not raise one denomination over any other and to insure that the government would not interfere with the free practice of religion. It was never designed to eliminate religion from government or public life.
Maybe more people would understand that if they would just look out of their cars, their apartments, the subways and airplanes and observe the glories of God’s work. It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes; I suspect that there are no atheists on sailboats, mountain tops, space stations, or scuba dives either. I am sure scientists at MIT and CERN can describe in excruciating detail the physics, chemistry and biology of everything we see, but none of them can adequately explain how ALL of it came to be in such perfect harmony.
Merry Christmas and God Bless America