The Romantic Poets...

...wrote against the dangers of the materialism that had became popular with the Age of Reason. This is not because they were anti-science but rather they saw the error in a purely reductionist approach. So Wordsworth writes:

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings:
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous form of things:-
We murder to dissect

in The Tables Turned

To a Butterfly

I'VE watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless!--not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!

This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister's flowers;
Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We'll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now.

________________________
STAY near me--do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father's family!
Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey:--with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.

By William Wordsworth

Love is a drug

This excellent video by Alistair Jennings illustrates the power of attraction. This is love as society often understands it. But the love of Jesus, agape, is different. It is a self sacrificing, faithful, constant love. A love that never fails and never depends upon our own beauty to keep it burning.

Planet earth from above

NASA has published some breathtaking images taken by satellites orbiting the planet. The example above is of the Norwegian coast.

Take a look here.

Genesis in photos

by Sebastiao Salgado
from this fascinating project.

Joy, love and light

This poem moves me to tears. It speaks of the emptiness of a world without God. Of course, that has nothing to do with the actual question of whether God is true or not, but still.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night

From Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

I believe there is joy, love and light.