Like a Bridegroom

Here are a few pictures our sun, courtesy of NASA's new space observatory:



Modern science has a nasty habit of confusing measuring/describing with knowing/understanding. But measuring is not knowing, and describing is not synonymous with understanding. Someone could measure, photograph and weigh my wife, Ellen, but still not know her. (Trust me on this one.)



The sun sits a comfortable 93 million miles away from modern scientists and laughs at them. The sun is the biggest tease in our galactic neighborhood. "Go ahead and take picture of this..." she says as she lifts her solar-skirt just above the knee, "...but remember, you can never touch it. Ever. But go ahead, keeping looking."



For all our solar probing and picture-taking, measuring and musing, there is still a universe of mystery here. The energy (the ability to do work) stored in your little mouse-clicking finger was graciously generated on this beautiful ball of fiery wonder and lovingly beamed across the vacuum of space, through earth's atmosphere, crashing into the lush green leaves of an apple tree that absorbed and then repackaged the energy, and pushed it out to the branch tips where it was transformed once last time into the tasty little chunks of vigor that you ate in your Waldorf salad two nights ago!



The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. (Psalm 19:1-6)