Sabbatical started today! Hooray!
Had planned on having a lie-in. Couldn't sleep. Maybe excited somewhere subconsciously. Maybe the wind. (The buffeting not the buffet.)
Woke up before 6, considering the end of the world. Like you do. More of that later if you're interested.
Realized I can now go for a run at any time of day without feeling too guilty about it. Went out before 7 anyway.
There are theological reflections to be done alongside the canal. There was a mother duck sheltering her ducklings under her wings in that feminine aspect of God kind of way. Shame I didn't have my phone to take a picture.
Then there was a small black dog running directly towards me, which thankfully chickened out before I did. I thought some bad thoughts as I gave my best "that should be on a lead" look to its owner, a lanky blonde woman. Not that either of those colours are relevant of course.
A bit later I saw two doves, FIGHTING! That's just not right. Maybe they were very light grey pigeons. The colour could be relevant in this case.
Our eyes only see three colours at full intensity - I think they're somewhere in yellow, green, and violet. So why does all our display technology work around red, green, and blue? That's a mystery to me.
Eyes are really impressive though. We can see as few as 7 photons, even if they come from another galaxy. "He gave us eyes to see them, and lips that we might tell how great is God almighty, who has done all things well".
Which brings me back to the "theological" thoughts that I woke up with. This isn't likely to be helpful to anyone but me, so there may be something else you'd rather do than read this next bit.
Suppose God transforms this world rather than starting again. I'd like to suppose that because God seems to do restoration rather than obliteration. And Saint Peter must be talking about refining fire rather than destructive fire because he hadn't heard of nuclear fusion or exotic particle interactions... (and all the other theology like that). Well where would God start in this universe? Everywhere at once? With us lot on planet earth? Maybe, but what if God started somewhere else? In a galaxy far, far away? Then it mustn't have started yet because we see galaxies as they were a very long time ago. And there seems to be a lot of destruction going on as well as creative things (like nucleogenesis, a favourite Vangelis track). From this simple evidence there are many possible theistic conclusions. 1) Most likely, I don't understand how God works at all, and should shutup. 2) Maybe There are regions of the universe which are already being transformed, but we don't recognize this, or can't see them. Our light-detecting eyes may not be up to the job anyway. 3) God will start with "sin central" - planet earth - and the recreation will proceed outwards from here. 4) The recreation does involve a complete reboot, in the twinkling of an eye, and we shall all be changed. Much as I don't like the idea of destruction, it's hard to understand the eschaton in terms of physics. I could never get the hang of The Fall, either. Maybe what I'm trying to understand is the difference between resuscitation and resurrection.
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