Close to home #5: Only time

Like sentinels on the bank of Tyler Creek, these twin stumps continue to stand their ground long after the trunks and branches above them have been cleared away to make room for new trees. It wasn’t for lack of water that these trees died; they are located just a few feet from the flowing waters of the creek. More likely they were felled by disease, or perhaps a lightning strike – the diameter of the stumps suggest they may have been among the taller trees in the area at one time – a prime target for lightning.

We have the ability to see things as they are, reason our way back to consider how things might have been and also cast ourselves into the future to speculate on how things will be. If you believe the Book of Genesis when it says God created man in His image, then you can understand why we alone have the ability to grasp concepts like time, eternity and infinity. It’s built in, a mere image of Someone infinitely greater.

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2005 James Jordan.

Was yesterday was an illusion?
Interesting thing happened yesterday. I occasionally check Site Meter throughout the day to see how traffic to this blog is doing. Yesterday it seemed I was getting a lot of hits. A lot. Several hundred more than I usually receive in a day. What was up? An exceptionally brilliant and witty post? A wonderfully compelling photograph? Dumb luck?

Actually it was a combination of all three with an emphasis on the latter. One of the blogs in my blogroll, Optical Illusions, Etc., was featured by Netscape as their “Cool Blog of the Day.” As well it should – the site is devoted to the mind tricks that images can play on a person; it’s a lot of fun. Result – a fifteen-fold increase in OIE’s already sizeable traffic.

Buried in OIE’s archive is a photo that I posted here last June. OIE liked the effect and gave a brief write-up, posted the photo and linked back here. I usually get a half dozen visits a week as a result of that link in OIE which is amazing in itself, considering its age. Yesterday I got more than 300 visits from OIE.

Today things seem to be back to normal, whatever that is.