A Moment of Sunshine

I sat in the cafe, eating my jacket potato out of it's polystyrene bowl with a Plastic knife and fork. it was a normal March day, dull, grey, uninspiring. I sat by the window looking out at the people as they walked up and down the high street. They walked slowly in groups, dragging children behind them, chatting to each other. Never looking where they were going. At times someone would storm past them, walking as if there lives depended on it. Two speeds of life fighting each other, all of it happening under the shadow of the clouds. The clouds that had been with us for what felt like 6 long months, with out a break.

And then, as the clouds parted, and just for a second, a ray of sunlight shot through the window, and shined upon my face. It was warm, hot even, and under its glare the world seemed to fill with colour, as if freshly painted. I saw the light, I felt the warmth. And I felt that little bit happier.

Without any pre-ample a part of my mind began to wonder at the miracle of what had just happened. The sun is ridiculously far away from us. And I mean ridiculously far away. If I was to start walking straight up to the sky, and never stop, to sleep, eat, or contemplate the impossibility of what I was doing, it would be 3,500 years before I arrived at the sun. It is so far away that it takes even light 8 whole minutes to travel from the surface to us. And before that light takes thousands of years to work it's way from the centre of the sun to it's edge.

After that it travels through a vacuum of 93 million miles. before a tiny fraction of it, around 0.00000005% hits the earth. Of that only 47% actually makes it the surface, the rest being scattered by the clouds, gas and atmosphere.

How amazing then that after this journey that lasted thousands of years and crossed millions of miles, the light should finally fall on me and make me feel that little bit happier. What were the odds!

And then my mind ran even further. The Potato I eaten existed due to the sun. Without the sun it could never have grown. It was cooked thanks to energy provided by the sun, millions of years ago when it helped the plants and trees grow that would become our oil and gas.

And that same oil was also the father of the polystyrene bowl I was eating out off and the cutlery I was using. And before our sun, Millions of other suns had to die to create the basic elements that make up oil, or that made up me!

In short, that moment, sitting in the cafe, eating my lunch, and feeling the sun warm me, only came about because of 13.7 billion years of the universe. A massive chain of cause and effect, that led, slowly, one step after the other, to a moment when, against all the odds, I could experience a simple moment of pleasure.

And then a moment later the clouds covered the sun again. The world went back to black and white. And I went back to eating my lunch.

---

This blog is a baby. Help it to grow. If you like what you've read please share it!

Climbing Mount Snowdon - A Moment of Spirituality

Now where the snow had been was a tangle of grey ethereal clouds as if she had remembered her long forgotten volcanic origins, and awoken once again.

We rarely managed to look up though. The melting snow birthed streams in every direction, even down the path we climbed. Our every step sent shivers running through the water, our own personal earthquake. The rocks fought, and slipped against us. And so we looked at the path ahead of us, and we made our way slowly up her side.

As we climbed the horizon grew, as if the world were stretching to show off to us. Where before there had been nothing trees, now there was fields and lakes, forests and hills. Even the sea showed itself, a sliver glint on the furthest horizon. A taste of forever just beyond our sight. And still we climbed. Our legs began to burn, the path got steeper. Eventually we left it behind us, scaling the rocks, stumbling, then leaping up, bruised, tired, but still carrying on.

A few steps more, our feet on fire, our clothes damp from the hail and rain, we climbed to the top of a ridge. And we looked over into the edge of the world. The mountain disappeared beneath us. We looked down at a lake, hundreds of feet below us, a mirror laid on the ground to reflect the sky. There were people there, so small they were nothing but specks, as the earth is a speck in our solar system, and the galaxy a speck in the universe. And we looked down upon it all, just specks in a speck, in a speck.

And yet standing there, the earth opened up beneath us, sharing her treasures with us, we felt like the most important people in the universe. To be allowed to spend just a moment there was an astounding privilege, an honor the earth had bestowed on us.

I pondered the age of the rocks beneath my feet, that had waited so many millions of years for me to climb them. I gazed at the landscape unrolled before me, a masterpiece of nature, that seemed to have been waiting for me to see it. This was a moment in time that I would never forget, that would stay with me forever, as a beautiful dreams clings to the thoughts when you wake up in the morning.

We looked. And we listened. There was nothing to hear, except the sound of waterfalls. There were no worries, no complaints, no panic. Just the rush of water as it scattered down the mountain. The sound of a river being born.

And, slowly even my thoughts faded away.There was nothing left to think about. There was nothing but now, with the majesty of the earth shining below me and the water singing as it headed to the valleys below.

Eventually, as the cold started to bite, we turned and began the journey back. Back down the path, back down the rocks that slipped beneath us, back to the car, and the worries, and the life that waited at the base of the mountain.

But as we drove away the mountain looked down upon us. It’s peak seemed to follow us, to linger with us, as the country disappeared and the real world unfolded. We gazed at her peak until the last moment, until she had disappeared beyond the horizon, each of us sharing a silent memory of a moment that would stay with us forever. A moment when we had stood upon the stairs of heaven, floating over the world below us, and looking down, and marveling at the tiny specks, of our tiny little lives.

---

This blog is a baby. Help it to grow. If you like what you've read please share it!

Darwin and Atheism; or how Darwin changed my life

Trawling through the blogs on Darwin day, Michael Ruse saw someone 'flying' an atheist flag on their blog, and began to query the connection between Darwin and Atheism. After all Darwin, wasn't an atheist, at least never explicitly. He never claimed there was no God. He didn't even eat babies!

But when I think of Darwin, I think of Atheism. Darwin, and the hundreds who have continued and improved his work, made me the atheist I am today. And they showed as well that an atheist can be a spiritual person.

I was the person in high school who argued against evolution. I would fight with my friends during biology class. I probably missed most of what was being taught, and so I didn't really encounter evolution until I looked into it myself in my early 20's.

I'd already started asking questions. Things had already begun to not make sense, and I had moved away from a Judeo-Christian God, but still believed in some kind of creator. The world was too beautiful, and too connected to not have anyone behind it.

It wasn't until I understood evolution, that I let go of God completely. Evolution was so simple that I didn't have a need for a God anymore. Everything was there because it started small. It made sense, and it didn't need a deity to see it on it's way.

But evolution is more than simple. It's beautiful too. It proves that we have a connection to all of nature. The beasts of the field became my cousins. And it showed me how lucky I was! Far from being a pre-destined creation I was the result of billions of years of evolution, of breeding, of luck. Had anyone of my ancestors failed to breed, had the environment been slightly different, had a single predator chosen a different meal, I wouldn't be here today. I am the result of billions of years of luck. The fact that I am alive is a miracle, larger than any I can comprehend.

This is a far more beautiful idea than being created. I have no grand purpose. I am not special. And yet I'm here anyway! What a chance! What a joy! And what freedom! Out of millions of possibilities I showed up! I was given the chance to make the best of this thing called life! And if it wasn't for Darwin I may never have known this.

Evolution whetted my appetite for science too. It showed me my connection with the universe. It challenged my beliefs and showed me how to keep challenging them. And so I grew. I know so much more now than I ever knew as a believer. But more importantly, I know all the things I don't know! Science is an amazing thing, with so many questions, and so many things waiting to be found out. It's like a playground waiting to be explored. And I would never have known about it if it wasn't for evolution.

I owe to Darwin, and the men and women who followed him, a massive thanks. You changed my life, and I have never looked back.

---

This blog is a baby. Help it to grow. If you like what you've read please share it!

Realise your Connection with Nature

Imagine you're attending a family reunion. Relax! Your uncle John won't be there, and as you're only imagining you won't have to talk to your grandma about that awkward situation at last years Christmas party.

Imagine your family decides to do the conga: they're that type of family. You take the lead, and your father grabs your shoulders. His father grabs his shoulders and so on. As this party is imaginary even the dead are invited, so long as they don't upset Aunt Bethel, and the conga line can stretch back for generations, say 1,000 fathers or more. This is the reason you always hold your family reunions in very large venues.

This conga line is your family history, and the reason that you are alive. Every single person in that conga line, managed, without fail, to reproduce and father offspring at least once. If anyone of them had failed you would not exist. If you broke away from the conga and walked down the line, you would also notice subtle changes as the generations pass. 10 generations back your family didn't have your prominent pointy chin. 30 generations back their ears were bigger. 50 generations back it's hard to find any family resemblance at all. If you could go back even further than the 1,000 generations, you would eventually find that the faces start to become less and less human, and the conga-ing less and less civilised. If you walked far enough back your ancestors would be too small for you to see.

This is the story of human evolution, albeit including a conga line. Most of us are familiar with this idea. But what we sometimes forget is that every living thing alive today has a similar conga line all of its own. Your hamster has a line of ancestors that run back for thousands of generations. And somewhere in his conga line, is an ancestor who is also in yours. It's true! If you go back far enough you and Hammy are cousins.

And it's not just Hammy you're related too. You're related to your guinea pig too! And the parasites living in Hammy's fur. Even the straw that lines Hammy's cage. Everything that lives or has ever lived is related to you.

We've all heard this before but we tend to brush it off as an idea, rather than a reality. But it is a reality! Think about this the next time your outside. That tree is your relative. That bird is your cousin. That butterfly is family.

When you look at the world this way, you cease to be single soul and join with the whole of creation. Every living thing in the world is family. Every creature, plant and cell shares a part of you.

Treat every person, animal, and plant as family, and you'll never feel alone again. All of nature, the whole of your massive extended family, is there, experiencing their own family trials, right along beside you.

---

This blog is a baby. Help it to grow. If you like what you've read please share it!

Take a walk on the Beach

There is something awe-inspiring about the sea.

To look out over the ocean is like looking at infinity. With nothing but water all the way to the horizon, the distractions, and problems, of the world disappear.

I grew up in the corner of the UK with a coastline 5 minutes away in 3 directions. Whenever I needed to think, I took a short walk to the beach, and looked out at the waves.

The sea itself is a planet of wonder. The waves travel in from unimaginable distances, exchanging oxygen and Carbon dioxide between the water and the atmosphere on their way. Without the waves life could not exist below the surface. Each wave hits the beach like a sigh sending watery fingers creeping up the sand, a voyage of discovery, before, tried, they return to the safety of the sea. As the day goes on the water climbs higher, then withdraws again, each tide a breath of water on to the land, caused by the ballet between the earth, the sun, and the moon. Without these tides the whole ecology of the sea would be thrown into disarray. It is even possible that tides were the reason sea-dwelling creatures first climbed onto dry land. Without them mankind may never have evolved.

The beach sand, which the waves crash onto, is formed from rocks and shells older than we can conceive. Eroded by water and wind over time, they are made even finer by each wave. The water itself is part of a constant cycle of evaporation, rain, river, ocean, and is the same water in which the first living creatures swam. Every single creature in the sea is related to us, and yet there are still thousands of them yet to discover. The ocean is an unknown world, and we have only just begun to explore it.

As the sun sinks below the horizon, dust and liquid particles scatter its light, painting the canvas of the sky with colours that take the breath away.

It is tempting, when experiencing the power and wonder of this mysterious world, to believe it was created just for us. That all this beauty was put on the earth for us to enjoy.

But the real story a beach tells, of the slow path of time, the spin of the earth, the pull of the moon, the flowing of the water, the adaption of species, and how it all fits together perfectly, is far more wondrous, far more life affirming, than any myth we can create. That the ages stare back at us when we look out at the ocean reminds us how lucky we are to have made it at all. And how much there is that we still do not know.

And until our life is over we will always be able to marvel at the view.

Pictures by Sansgod

---

This blog is a baby. Help it to grow. If you like what you've read please share it!